


A Cataclysm In Three Parts

by indraaas



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Gen, brotps everywhere, hospitals are absolutely toxic breeding grounds for competition and burnout, this fic is found family rights, wendy is an unreliable narrator first and foremost, wendy's also massively depressed and in need of like two hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25586632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indraaas/pseuds/indraaas
Summary: Hers is a world of cracks and missing pieces, and no matter how strongly the light seeps through, it will never be enough.  Wendy Marvell is fifteen, and so very, very old.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	1. the rise

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Oh shit, she back. Please take a second to read this A/N before jumping into the fic! This is a side-story (backstory?) to my other fanfic, Chaos Theory. As I was writing Wendy's scenes I realized while her characterization in that fic made sense to me, they would make more sense to you all if you had some kind of...backstory on her work? You don't have to read CT to understand this, and you don't have to read this to understand CT. If you like Wendy, this is a fic for you.
> 
> But, you know, shameless Chaos Theory plug.
> 
> And for those of you who are familiar with me and my writing, don't fret or roll your eyes, I actually wrote this fic in its entirety before deciding to drop it. It will be three chapters, and the next update is next week Wednesday. I have the whole thing written out, it just needs to be edited. Same deal with CT, I've written out the next ~15 chapters and once I'm done done the fic, I'll be uploading all of them in one go, 'cause I've kept you all waiting long enough.
> 
> Anyway, couple warnings ahead of time for this one: Wendy is an unreliable narrator. This is the most important point I want you all to keep in mind while reading this. She's going through it and hopefully you all will, too. Also, this fic takes place in a hospital. There will be gore and detailed general nastiness. Proceed at your own risk. There is a distinct lack of Exceeds in this fic. I will explain why in the final chapter.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own FT, Hiro Mashima does.

" _I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,_

_but just coming to the end of his triumph."_

_-Jack Gilbert_

* * *

Wendy is thirteen the first time she pieces together a human being.

An exaggeration, yes, but that's what it feels like. Her magic seeps through Laxus's massive form and hooks into the edges of his worst injuries, _begging_ them to heal. The Runes Freed erected around them for their flight to Magnolia General hold steady against the elements, but every so often there's a sudden jerk of turbulence that rips at her concentration, drawing fresh blood from somewhere she didn't even think to look before.

Her shaking hands press against his chest, mechanically forcing his lungs to contract and expand. The more magic she pumps into him the harder it is to see the jagged injuries in her mind's eye. She cuts off her supply quickly, focusing just on the lungs. Contract, expand. In, out.

_Breathe, breathe._

Wendy breathes and sends a trickle of magic through his system.

The biggest she can find is an oozing wound on his liver – a blade? A through-and-through. The external wounds have been healed already; she doesn't need to worry about that. The liver, though, the liver needs attention. It's the primary detoxification center, there's good glucose stores, there's lots of metabolites to manipulate here…simple facts, things to cling on to. 'What goes forward can be reversed,' Granny Porly likes to say. She can reverse this. She can fix this.

And so, she does. One hand remains attached to his side, knitting together frayed hepatic cells and gently coaxing life back into them, and the other sends thrums of magic into his heart, following the path of blood throughout his body and tagging onto where the clotting traits are thickest. It's easy to keep track of the injuries this way: find one, amplify the factors just enough to form a seal, find the next tag. Rinse, lather, repeat.

By the time they've burst through the hospital doors, Laxus is breathing on his own, no longer bleeding, and Wendy thinks she's done an okay job.

The doctors waiting for them look at her like she's a _god_.

(It will be many years down the line that she realizes that being a god and being feared are the same side of the coin.)

* * *

"She's the perfect fit," Lucas Wheeler argues a week later, "Porlyusica, it's absolutely insane that you haven't sent her over sooner. I've never seen such exceptional healing in my life, what were you thinking?"

Granny Porly scowls, the lines of her face somehow deeper than they've ever been. "The brat is too young to be working in a hospital, Wheeler. I don't care how good she is, it's not good enough."

Next to a heavily drugged Laxus, Wendy fights to hide her flinch.

_Not good enough._

She fixed Laxus, didn't she? All by herself, up in the air, half-depleted and running on a prayer. The doctors were all surprised and awed and this one, Wheeler, even told her he had a place for her on his team.

She's good enough. She has to be to have done all that.

_Not good enough._

She has to be.

"She's _perfect_ ," Wheeler stresses, looking between Granny Porly and an equally pensive Master Makarov. "This kind of talent needs to be honed early, and no offense, Porlyusica, but you are _godawful_ at teaching. We can't afford to let her skills waste away!"

"Wendy is thirteen," Master Makarov says slowly, weighing his words as he exchanges a significant look with Granny Porly. Something passes between them and he sighs, continuing, "At Fairy Tail-"

"A Guild, and she has the stamp! Meaning she's old enough to take missions within the scope of her - you know what? I'm making this a mission," Wheeler says. He crosses the room quickly, almost tripping over his feet, and grasps her shoulders tightly. A squeak dies on her lips under his intense, dark gaze. Her lungs are frozen in space.

"Do you accept? The mission. I'm giving you a mission, long-term, salaried. You work on my team in the ER and the OR, and I'll make you the best doctor on Earthland." His fingers are so long they dig into her shoulder-sockets as they tighten. "Do you? I promise you, you won't regret this, Wendy. You'll become a _legend_ , I'll make sure of it! We-"

"That's enough," Laxus grumbles, pushing him back a few feet. The second his hands are gone, Wendy sucks in a deep, frenzied breath that has her chest seizing. What was that, what _was_ that?

Wheeler blinks. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry. I just...you have to understand, this is a one in a lifetime opportunity for the both of us. I'm sorry, really."

Wendy relaxes. That makes sense, he's anxious. Anxiety does weird things to people: Natsu goes catatonic, Lucy blabbers until she cries, Erza stress-eats, Gray chain-smokes until he's out of money, and Laxus...she spares a curious glance at her companion. She doesn't know what he does. Maybe that's what those SoundPods of his are for? He drowns the world out.

The Lightning Dragon Slayer looks down briefly. "You good?"

"Yes, thank you!" Wendy nods furiously, blushing bright red under all the eyes in the room. Mortified, she keeps her eyes fixed on the scuff marks of her shoes and hopes her hair does a good job of covering her face. Wheeler probably thinks she's a _loser_ now. How is she supposed to handle a hospital when she needs Laxus to fight her battles for her? He'll never take her on now.

The thought panics her more than it should, and she jumps up, yelling, "I'll do it!"

They stare at her blankly, and she adds, more subdued, "T-the mission. I'll do the mission."

"You will? You will!" Wheeler says with a cheery little dance, "Oh, you're going to love the hospital! I'll get you all set up tomorrow. You're going to save so many lives, Wendy. You were born for this."

_You were born for this._

She sinks into her birthright with open arms, nearly missing the displeased frown on Laxus's face at her joy.

* * *

"We decided to ease you in today, so you'll just be following me and observing. We'll be in the ER, mostly, and you'll get a break after a few hours. You can find the schedule here, and for now you just look for my name. Once we get you all trained up, I'll unleash you on the hospital all on your own. Now, if you look at the schedule closely, you'll see…"

Wheeler practically vibrates with joy as he points out every detail of the hospital. There's a lot to know and Wendy soaks it up like a _sponge_. Battle strategy washes over her like water over oil, but this is a spark she can tell will _burn_ until she's a beacon for all to see. She memorizes the little things: the fact that her scrubs are dark blue with a thick yellow stripe on the collar that denotes her as a student, that the nurses use green marker and the doctors use red, and that, including herself and Wheeler, there are only four people capable of magical healing in this hospital.

She's special. She can do things to help that others can't. She can _help._

"You ready?" Wheeler asks. Wendy straightens up and nods. She's ready. She has to be.

"Excellent. I'll be quizzing you every day, just so you stay on your toes. Let's start with something simple. What are the derivatives of phenylalanine, in order, and what are two conditions in which either phenylalanine or its derivatives are implicated?"

"Tyrosine, L-Dopa, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, and, um, PKU and Parkinson's."

"Good. Let's suppose we have a PKU patient…"

* * *

"How was your first day at the hospital, Wendy?" Erza asks, munching away at her strawberry shortcake serenely, as if Natsu and Gray aren't trying to break each others' necks right beside her. Wendy eyes them warily before shaking her head and smiling at Erza.

"I _loved_ it. Dr Wheeler was so nice and the quizzes were _hard_ , but I have a lot to review before tomorrow! And I got to set a broken bone today, it was amazing. He said he'd never seen a remodelling pattern like mine before and we could work to refine it together!"

"That's great, Wendy!" Lucy chirps, patting her head gently. Wendy flushes, bowing her head. It's so embarrassing to be word-vomiting like this, but she's never felt so high in her life, not even when Carla carries her in the skies. She wants to tell them everything, like the way the patient cried when she told him he was fine and could leave the next day, or that Wheeler said she was a _prodigy_ , and that she's making fast friends with the nurses, who are the absolute _coolest_ \- even cooler than Natsu, she has to admit. He's strong and powerful and she will always aspire to have his drive and courage, but the nurses are steadfast and so smart they run her in circles with their knowledge.

"Aw, man, those hospital assholes are gonna keep you away from us forever!" Natsu wails, ducking under Gray's arm to pout at her. "You gotta promise you'll join us on missions! We'd be shot to shit without you providing support."

Wendy's smile fades a little. _Support_. Right, she's support. Her strongest magic is her defensive magic, after all. Vernier, Arms, and Armour are her signature moves.

 _Your strongest magic is_ healing. _Venier is_ nothing _. You're good enough._

"I think I'm going to go to the library," Wendy announces, stuffing a chunk of pie into her mouth to keep herself from frowning too obviously. "Work!"

"Gross, have fun," Gray laughs, kicking Natsu's feet out from under him.

"I'll come with, if that's okay? I need to check out a couple books for research," Lucy says, rising to follow her. Wendy nods, waving goodbye to the rest of the team and following her chatty friend out the doors.

Above them, Laxus watches with a carefully bored eye.

* * *

"What's this for?" Wendy asks one day in the doctor's lounge. She isn't supposed to be here because she's still a student, but Wheeler promises to have an access card made for her anyway. Her heart still flutters every time she thinks about it - her, _Wendy Marvell_ , so special she gets a key card ( _the_ key card) before anybody else in her cohort.

Wheeler looks up from the blood reports before him and says, "I see you found our leaderboard! We keep track of who's run the most hours per month, and then the board next to the one you're looking at are the legacy scores. We erase it at the end of the year just to make it fair for the newbies, but the information is kept in a permanent file somewhere in the cabinets. I imagine you'll be up on there soon enough if I have anything to say about it!"

They're coming up on the end of April, and the highest score for the month is four-hundred and fifty hours run by Wheeler himself. Wendy runs through some quick math, blinking in surprise.

"Um, I thought the hospital said no more than eighty hours run a week by a physician? This is almost a hundred and twelve a week!"

A group of doctors huddled around a table playing Snap burst into laughter at that. Wheeler rolls his eyes at them. "Be nice, she's new."

"Yeah, what hospital admin _says_ is more to cover their asses legally. Really, most people wind up shooting for about a hundred a week depending on how fucked staffing is," one of them, with fiery red hair she keeps pinned up in a painfully tight looking bun, says.

"And staffing will _frequently_ be fucked," her opponent adds, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses. "These bastards will do anything to cut corners. Did you get a _load_ of their budget proposal at the meeting last week? At this rate we'll be running on one syringe of morphine for the whole hospital…"

"Implying we ever got _more_ than that? These days I'm lucky if I can get my hands on some damn acetaminophen and I'm a fuckin' anaesthesiologist! The fuck do you expect me to knock these people out with, my fists?"

Wendy tunes out what appears to be an age old argument and focused on the board with cold determination. A hundred hours a week. She can do that. That'll put her in the top twenty easily, and then she can start adding hours and make it to the top ten, five, three, _one_. She _will_ be number one.

_Five months. I can do this in five months_

* * *

Working on cadavers is paradoxically easier and harder than working on a living human. On the one hand, there's no moaning patient, no beeping of hospital equipment, no pressure to keep someone alive.

On the other hand, Wendy has never seen a dead body before let alone been wrist-deep in one. Team Natsu has done an exceptional job thus far of keeping her as far away as possible from any _real_ carnage, and even though she's caught glimpses out of the corner of the eye, nothing could have ever prepared her for how much _life_ there still is in someone so clearly _dead._

Wheeler's presence at her side doesn't make it any easier to focus on the task at hand, but she tries anyway. The entire right thigh has been split open and pulled apart to reveal the cracked femur she's been ordered to mend. Bile dances at the back of her throat, threatening to come up with every brush of her fingers against cold, dry flesh. It feels so _wrong_. It's supposed to be warm and slippery with blood that makes it difficult to pick out landmarks, but everything has been so neatly cleaned by the pathologist that Wendy can pick out individual layers and tissues with her sight alone.

_It's fine, it's fine, this is the same for everyone. We all look like this underneath it all, it's fine, it's natural…_

Her pinky catches tendon, and she almost knocks over an instrument tray backing up.

"Are you alright?" Wheeler asks. Wendy nods shakily, forcing down all the nausea and _wishing_ she was the body on the table, with no functional body systems to betray her panic and make her look like an _idiot_ in front of the one person whose approval means life or death.

"Yes! Sorry, I just...my senses are, um, more sensitive than most because of the Dragon Slayer thing, and, um...well, it just feels weird trying this on a dead body, I'm not sure what to do…" Just enough of the truth to hide the lie. Mystogan taught her well.

Wheeler nods sympathetically. "I get it. Although, I _would_ like to test how those senses fare in the ER...imagine being able to diagnose fatal arrhythmias with your hearing alone! Or being able to smell certain diseases! You're a _beacon_ of potential, kid...but back to the basics, we're getting ahead of ourselves."

Not ahead _enough_. Grandeeny only ever briefly touched on the potential for her senses to be used like this before she disappeared, leaving Wendy with half-answers to questions she was too young to ever formulate. Now that she's _got_ the potential to answer those and _more_ within grasp, _later on_ is too far away.

If sticking her hands in dead bodies means she gets there quicker, she'll figure out a way to reanimate him if that's what Wheeler wants.

"You have very good control over your magic, Wendy. You're using a little _too_ much, though. Watch." Wheeler places his hand above one of the fractures on the femur, summoning magic tinged with ozone that seeps into the bone and knits it together with cold precision. "Run a diagnostic now. You should be able to feel the traces of my magic there, and I want you to tell me why I did it right."

Wendy obliges, willing her magic to her fingertips and picking up where he left off. Lightning arcs up through her arm, slicing through the delicate layers of air she presses into the bone. She frowns, making a mental note to look into this later on, and continues to probe the site. Under her fingers, the bone is perfectly smoothed over, no trace of a break to begin with. Under her magic, though, Wendy can feel the _difference_ ; the newer bone is far _bouncier_ than the old one. Walking will likely harden it up to normal, but for now he's perfectly fine.

Well, if he were alive he _would_ be fine, but the point remains.

"You healed it to the point where it feels sort of...cartilaginous. It's not, um, fully remodelled. It's very controlled and limited," she reports, peeking up at him. Wheeler's approving nod is a hard cap to the raging ball of anxiety in her stomach, forcing it down. He approves. He thinks she's doing good. She _is_ doing good.

"Very good! Yes, you don't want to put in _too_ much magic, or it doesn't set right. Just enough that the body can kick in and fix up the rest on its own. You use way too much magic, making it difficult to control and _also_ heal. If you do it a lot slower and in smaller doses, you'll see that it's easier," Wheeler explains, checking the clock by the doors. "It's getting a bit late, we should pick up again tomorrow-"

"No!" Wendy says fiercely, positioning her hands over the next break. "I'm staying until I figure this out. I can do it."

Wheeler grins, ruffling her hair. "I _knew_ it. You _are_ a mini-me! Alright, kid, until Stiles comes back from his break or you run out of magic, whichever comes first!"

(Stiles returns to his morgue an hour later to find them elbow deep in the body's thoracic cavity working on broken ribs and chases them out with a 16-gauge needle.

Half-falling over herself running up the stairs, Wendy has never felt so at _home_.)

* * *

Laxus shows up at the hospital for a check-up the day Wheeler is showing her the ropes in the non-emergency clinic.

"Ah, Mr Dreyar! I see you're back for your check-up, right on time this time! Would you mind if Wendy does it this time? For practice, of course. I'll be here to supervise-" Wheeler is cut off by the red-head from the lounge, who Wendy learns is named Geneva, barging in and doubling over.

"Myxoma," Geneva says breathlessly, and Wheeler's eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. He lurches forward, ready to grab her and bolt, but he stops and turns around reluctantly.

"Wendy, I...this is a _really_ serious condition. I need to scrub in and deal with it _quick_ , and I can't waste time waiting for you to prep, so do you think you can handle this while we…?"

"Of course! I'll wait here until you're done?"

"Take the day off or something. See ya!"

_Waste time. Day off. Not good enough, not yet. If I'd been good enough to start, they'd have let me in with them…_

Wendy shakes her head and smiles up at Laxus. "I'll just run a diagnostic on you, if that's okay?"

"Sure."

She's practiced this so often under Wheeler's careful eye that it's second nature to her now. There's the familiar _zap_ of his ozone against her wind that she's learned to handle with a practiced ease - start small, let it zap, overpower and tamper it down - and then it's just flesh, bone, and the most _mind-bogglingly massive_ magic stores she's ever felt in her short life. Not even _Erza's_ are this giant and she's got enough to power Wendy ten times over and then some.

 _This_ is what it means to be a Dragon Slayer. Not whatever slivers Wendy can offer.

As she assesses the healed injuries, her mind wanders. Does Wheeler think she doesn't deserve to be in the OR because of her mix-up with the heart valves during his quiz last week? A myxoma is a heart tumour, maybe he thinks she's too stupid for this and he'll let her in for the next one. But what if she makes a mistake later on during another quiz and he refuses to let her in to see patients because she can't be trusted with them? Physicians can't afford to make mistakes. This is punishment for messing up, she has to be _perfect_.

Wendy doesn't realize how powerful the burst of panic in her chest is until Laxus flinches away from her hands. "You good?"

 _Another mistake,_ another _one!_

"Yeah! Sorry, I got a bit too into it," Wendy lies, grabbing the chart off the bed beside him and flipping through it to a random page. She holds it up to her face, absorbed in an x-ray report that's just blurred lines, fighting back the sting in her eyes and the tightness ravaging her throat with every breath.

It's really no use, Laxus can smell the tears even if they don't fall. He's polite enough to give her a few seconds to compose herself so she can plaster on a clinical smile and say, "Everything seems fine to me. You know where to find me if something starts to act up!"

Laxus nods and slides off the bed, adjusting his coat over his shoulders. Wendy takes a few steps back, suddenly _way_ too claustrophobic in a room twice the size of the one she sleeps in. Forget his _magic_ , how has she never noticed how overwhelming his sheer presence is? Wendy's tiny, stick-thin, made of magic so soft it's designed to make her melt into the background of whoever she's supporting.

 _No good as a doctor_ or _a Slayer._

"You coming?" Laxus asks.

"E-excuse me?"

"The guy said take the day off. You coming?" he repeats, waiting for her by the door awkwardly. Wendy can't remember if she's ever seen him use one of those. Normally he just...appears.

"I still have work to do, so I'll just-"

"You're supposed to take the day off."

"Y-yes, but I have hours to-"

"You ever had frozen yoghurt?" Laxus interrupts, scratching the back of his head. He pointedly avoids eye-contact and Wendy realizes this is as close as he's getting to asking her to hang out as _friends_. She's made enough stupid calls today to last her a lifetime, so she quickly shoves the chart into an 'outbox' in the room and nods furiously.

"Yes! I mean, no to the frozen yoghurt, but yes to the off day! I-I mean, only if-"

"Which way is Hyde Park from here?"

"Oh, um...I don't...actually know…"

It turns out Laxus is so used to using his teleportation magic to get around that, on foot, he's somehow the most directionally challenged person in the Guild - which is saying something, because Wendy is on a team with Natsu _and_ Gray. Between her affinity for scents and his sixth sense for sweets, they manage to follow the sugar to a little pop-up shop at the entrance of Hyde Park in a little less than forty minutes.

Laxus loads up on all the toppings, dumping spoonfuls of things in her sparse container when he thinks she'll like it. Wendy _hopes_ mango fish eggs aren't _actual_ fish eggs. She also hopes Laxus has been saving his mission pay over the years, because their frozen yoghurt costs a week's worth of groceries. He pays for both of them despite her insistence to fork over her half, and then leads her over to one of the benches by the pond.

"This is so _expensive_ ," she murmurs for the tenth time, toying with the proportions on the spoon. Should she eat the little chocolate shavings with the yoghurt, or add in one of those fish eggs things for flavour? Or is that too much? Is there frozen yoghurt etiquette she's never received?

Laxus pops a spoonful with all the fixings and shrugs. "Good quality means high price."

Chocolate shavings and fish eggs it is.

"Yeah, but still...not that I'm not grateful! I am! Thank you! I know you're very busy and this is probably taking up a lot of your time, but you're probably on a break from all the work which is _good_ because everyone needs breaks, and I'm also super grateful you're spending your break with me even though we don't talk much and you could be with the rest of the Guild relaxing and-"

"Breathe. Eat," Laxus orders. Wendy dutifully pops a spoonful in her mouth, eyes widening at the burst of flavour. _Mango juice_.

"So it's _not_ actual fish eggs!" she cheers. Laxus furrows his brows, bewildered, opening and closing his mouth a few times in succession. He eventually settles for a slow, confused, "Why would you think these were fish eggs?"

"That's what the label said! And Carla's been trying to get me to eat more diverse foods recently, and on top of that, I've _seen_ Natsu eat some weird stuff before, so I wouldn't be surprised if mango flavoured fish eggs actually _existed_ , so I just...assumed...never mind, dumb thought," she laughs it off, scooping a much smaller bite into her mouth. It tastes a bit acrid on her tongue now, overpowering and doesn't mix together well. If she toys with it a little more it'll melt into a goop and she can dispose of it without anyone judging her. Then again, that's a waste of his money…Wendy forces down another spoonful, ignoring the way she can feel it refuse to settle in her stomach.

"You forget I grew up with him. I've seen him eat charcoal before, fish eggs don't surprise me."

Right, they all grew up together. They all know each other and made each other stronger. Two Dragon Slayers in the same Guild growing up...no wonder they're both so strong. Master Roubaul did what he could, but with nobody to practice offense with, Wendy's enchantments and healing prowess are her strongest suits. Maybe if she'd grown up with them people would look at her with the same kind of envy and awe as they do Natsu or Laxus, instead of the rare glance of acknowledgement that her magic grants her. That she is _Wendy Marvell_ is always ignored in favour of the fact that she is _the_ Sky Dragon Slayer.

"Did you and Natsu train together a lot growing up? Because you're both Slayers?" Wendy blurts out suddenly.

"I only got my Lacrima when I was about ten, a few years before he showed up. I didn't tell anyone I was a Slayer until I was twenty-three, so this year. Or seven years ago, I guess," Laxus replies, running the little plastic spoon over his teeth idly.

"You kept it hidden for that long? How? Didn't...I mean, you were a super famous mage before, right? So didn't...people didn't idolize you because you were a Dragon Slayer?"

"I made S-Class pretty quick and I'm good at fighting. That's all people care about."

"It must've been nice," Wendy says softly, "To be so renowned. Your reputation always preceded you, you know?"

"Depends on who you ask. People who don't know me think I'm a god, people who know me think I'm a person who can sometimes level mountains. Mostly I'm just a person," Laxus says, as if it's as simple as _being._

But he doesn't get it. He will _never_ get it, because Laxus Dreyar has never just _been_. He's a primordial beast whose existence is so deeply entrenched into this world that even Wendy, residing in the farthest edges of the mountains, knew him by name. One day Laxus Dreyar will die and be buried six feet under like the rest of them, but the difference is he won't ever actually _die_ because people will remember him. He'll go down in history as the next Guild Master, or the Lightning Slayer, or the guy that defeated a Wizard Saint, or just _Laxus Dreyar_ , and that in and of itself is _something._ They'll remember him and his _being_ will _become_ the Fairies, like the First is.

When Wendy Marvell will die, she'll fade into the vast expanse of the sky and carve out a layer to call her own. _She_ will just be.

"You should come by the Guild more often. I know long-terms can take up a lot of time, but everybody misses you."

_Then why are you the only person to have reached out to me?_

"I know, I feel so bad...I'm learning a lot, though, it's just hard to find a balance," Wendy forces out, scraping the melting chocolate shavings against the cup walls. She's long since given up trying to finish it, price be damned.

"It's a rush at first, finding your niche. Let yourself love it, but remember not to _become_ your niche," Laxus advises, plucking her cup out of her hands and rising. He stands right in front of the sun, so she doesn't have to squint when she looks up at him. The late-afternoon rays catch the highlights of his hair and draw shadows over his face that remind her of murals devoted to ancient guardians; there's a softness to him in spite of it, humility caught in the calm ocean of his eyes. Something earned, not given.

"C'mon, I think Mira's got sashimi as the special for tonight. If we hurry we can beat the cats to it."

* * *

"Sorry about this, Wendy," Lucy apologizes again, "Normally I'd just let them suffer but they were vomiting a little _too_ much, you know?"

"Lucy's mean…" Natsu moans, rolling on his side and hiking a leg up. Wendy sighs and pushes him flat on his back again, adjusting the IVs once more. He tries to roll the other way, but takes one look at Erza sharpening her sword and freezes. "I hate this…"

"Who asked you two to eat those damn berries?" Lucy scolds, adding triple knots to Gray's hospital gown. She looks up to glare at Natsu and completely misses the way Gray begins to undo the ties.

"Gray!"

"Fuck you!"

"I won."

"No you didn't. I did."

"I threw up first!"

"We were on a train!"

"Still won!"

"Wanna _go_ , flame brain?"

"First one to the back-"

"If any of you move and disrupt Wendy's attempts to heal you, I will use you as target practice for the next week," Erza threatens, although coming from her that's less a threat and more a promise.

Predictably, they go quiet; Wendy mouths a 'thank you' to the red-head and continues to press her magic into Natsu's stomach, probing for a clue. All they've managed to tell her is that they saw a patch of berries and decided to see who could finish the most in one go, and that they were red and bitter, which does nothing to help her narrow it down.

"What do you have so far?" Wheeler asks as he enters the room, two files in hand. Wendy doesn't look up, focused on remaining careful in her scanning. If she wavers from the output she's at, her head starts to spin and her lips grow cold.

"Red berries, bitter. Nausea, muscle weakness," she reports, "I'm feeling something, um, weird. Bittersweet? Mostly sweet, but not the good kind."

Wheeler flips through one of the files and raises a brow, eyeing Natsu and Gray with newfound interest. "You two really are...something. Alright, tell me what you feel besides that."

"If I use too much magic it sort of feels like I'm feeling what they are. I can...taste it? I think, it's very dizzying and makes it hard to concentrate."

Natsu lifts a hand to point at her, but it flops and dangles off the bed weakly. "That. Yes. Same."

"Same," Gray echoes, hissing as Lucy re-ties his gown using some convoluted knot she probably picked up from Virgo.

"What kind of poison do you know can do all that?"

"...most of them?" Wendy hazards, backtracking as his face morphs into vague disapproval. Not good, not good, stupid answer. Her tongue runs dry, hands clammy as she stretches her mind back to Master Roubaul's early lessons on poisons, but all there is is a jumble of herbal antidotes she's sure she's mixing up. She can't think, can't see past the fog descending and thickening with every second that ticks by.

_Think, think, think, red, bitter, sweet, breathing, hard to breathe, weak…_

"Cyanide!" she gasps finally, "It's cyanide!"

Wheeler's approving nod slices through the confusion, giving way to annoyance - at _herself_. It's so _basic_ , how could she forget? She's known these things since she was old enough to walk, how could she forget _now_ of all times?

_Pathetic._

"Cyanide?" Lucy shrieks, whacking Gray across the head and whipping her shoe at Natsu's head for good measure. "You _dumbasses_!"

"Treatment plan?" Wheeler ignores the screeching, peering over Wendy's shoulder to assess her healing. Now that she knows it's cyanide, her main concern is the lungs, although they seem to be in decent shape.

"It's not too severe, so I won't crack out the cyanide kit. Supplemental oxygen, just to be sure. And then...activated charcoal," Wendy winces. Natsu brightens up at that.

"Hey! I've eaten charcoal before, it wasn't that bad!"

_"You forget I grew up with him. I've seen him eat charcoal before, fish eggs don't surprise me."_

"I know," Wendy replies vaguely, "But, um, this…"

"You're going to throw up," Lucy says bluntly, "Like, a lot."

"How do you-?"

"I knew it!" Erza crows, "You and Erik _have_ been hanging out!"

Wendy, predictably, squeaks.

* * *

With the sleepy haze of summer comes an influx of patients, and Wendy finds herself spending so much time in the hospital that the sofa in the resident's lounge has a permanent dent where she sleeps - when she can, that is. She catches a cumulative six hours a day, but the key word is _cumulative_. The longest she's gone while napping is four hours uninterrupted, and the other two are often in twenty minute increments. She no longer counts her days in numbers, but rather by cases and shifts and rotations.

Days spent in the ICU melt into hours healing shattered bones in the ER, and those blur together with the careful knitting of gashes and hacked off limbs - because she can do that now, and it only takes three shifts worth of training on corpses in the morgue (Stiles slides her a key that joins the resident's lounge, Wheeler's office, the on-call room, and pathology) - and then there are the times in pulmonology, where they treat her with a reverence she's only just learned is attainable for people like _her._

It feels good to be _needed_ like this. To have people run to her _first_ because she can stabilize the problems the quickest, that she's got the most accurate diagnostic abilities, her bedside manner is unparalleled, she can see things others can't. A million things she never recognized as _special_ make her the star of the hospital. They make her _Wendy Marvell._

For once, that by itself is enough.

"Yo," Laxus greets, startling her out of her skin. When had he-? Never mind.

"Hi! Sorry, one sec." She crouches down to pick up the fallen folders. Laxus bends over to help but she swats him away gently. "Patient confidentiality!"

"Oh, right," he mutters, "We've always been treated by Poorly, who doesn't...well, you know."

"That I do. Whoa!" Laxus grabs her by the elbow as she sways on her feet. It takes a few seconds for her head to feel like it's where it belongs and not by her kneecaps, and she stays still just until her vision clears. "Got a bit dizzy, my bad. Thank you!"

"You good? When was the last time you slept?"

"Um. A shift ago?"

"And before that?"

"...two shifts ago?" Wendy says weakly, shrinking under his intense gaze. "O-or maybe just one before, there was a mage that got brought in with a shattered spine that took a long time to heal-" Laxus somehow looks even more upset with this, so she backtracks quickly, "But I did it! I healed him and he should be okay, just a lot of little bones to touch, which...um, I did…"

"Do you know what today is?" he asks finally. Wendy pauses, wracking her brains for the answer. Last she checked a calendar it was Saturday, and with the spine, the saddle embolism, the one case with the amputated calf, plus all the miscellaneous healings…

"Tuesday?" she guesses.

"The full date."

"Tuesday, June...eleventh?"

"It's the fourteenth, Wendy," Laxus says, a lull before the storm. "Your birthday."

Oh. The fourteenth. Today, she's fourteen years old.

She waits for her cheeks to burn, the warm flush through her body that carries exultation and joy to the edges of her nerves.

There's nothing.

Today is the fourteenth, and she's scheduled to repair a PDA in two hours.

"I guess I lost track of time," she murmurs, looking anywhere but him. She counts twenty beeps of a heart rate monitor before he speaks again.

"C'mon, Guild's throwing you a party."

Her head snaps up. "I have work-!"

"Fuck work, _fuck Wheeler_. It's your birthday, celebrate it." Laxus's shoulders bunch up, though his grip on her arm stays gentle. She can wiggle out of it if she wants, but she's frozen in place, witness to the storm flashing through his eyes. "It's important. To celebrate it with people who...just people."

"Okay," she says, "Okay, just...I need to get somebody to cover for me. Let's go to Wheeler?"

Her de facto Guild Master nods, following her down the hall to the resident's lounge where she _hopes_ he's busy prepping. They pass by students, doctors, nurses, and patients, and Wendy is _inexplicably pleased_ to note that they look at _her_ first, acknowledge _her_ , before they see Laxus and do a double-take.

"Hey, Wendy! Congrats, kid, you made it!" Wheeler waves her in, shooting Laxus a two-fingered salute. "Dreyar, nice to see you again."

"She needs the next week off," Laxus says brusquely.

"No I don't! Just today! And - wait, where did I make it?"

"It's her birthday today. You've not given her a mandated off since she started. One week."

"It's your birthday? Happy birthday! How come you didn't tell us?" Wheeler asks, all too calm in the face of Laxus's booming voice. She supposed it's something that comes with years of experience dealing with patients - something she really ought to get good at soon.

"I forgot," Wendy says shortly, "Where did I make it?"

Hope is blooming in her chest, fingers growing numb with giddiness. It can't - there's no way. There is a way, but there's still _no way_. She doesn't want to _think_ about it because if it's not true then she'll _cry_ but what if, what if, _what if_ -!

"Nineteen!" Geneva shouts. Alvarado smiles a crinkly smile that has his glasses slipping down his nose. "Nice going, kid! You knocked Nishino down a spot."

Her head almost rolls off her head in her haste to look at the board and _there she is_. Nineteen. Nineteen. She _made it._

_Eighteen more to go._

"See this is how you know you've made it as a physician. You forget your own birthday," Wheeler sniffs dramatically, clutching his heart and wiping under his eye. "She's all grown up, guys."

"One week," Laxus snaps. Oh, shit, right. He's still here.

"Sure, sure. Take a week."

"I'll get one of my interns to cover your PDA, kid!" Alvarado calls, then mutters in an undertone, "Fuckin' hope those idiots know what that is…"

"It's okay, they can't all be Wendy," Geneva soothes.

Wendy leaves the hospital _grinning._

* * *

Mira doesn't hold back in her party preparations. Decorations drip from the ceiling to the floor, cover every table and loop around all the banisters. Reedus enchants a massive portrait of her to float above the bar with a sizable banner underneath reading 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY WENDY' in curly, glittery script. There's a _six tier cake_ guarded by a fierce-looking Erza, decked out in her Adamantine Armour, swinging a spiked club at anybody who gets too close.

All in all, it's absolute _chaos_ and Wendy is taken aback by how much she _misses_ this.

"We miss you!" Lucy wails, hanging off her heavily. Wendy yelps, grabbing onto Laxus's arm to stay upright.

"I miss you too! I'm sorry, I got really busy and…this is all very sweet of you!" Wendy drops his arm to hug her back, drowning in the smell of strawberries and sunshine.

"It's your champagne birthday! We gotta get a little champagne in you~!" Cana sings, stumbling over with a barrel tucked under each arm. Unimpressed, Laxus pokes her forehead, sighing when she falls down.

"She's _fourteen_ , Cana."

"We both started around then, too, bud."

"We are _not_ good metrics for success, believe it or not."

Wendy scoffs internally. Not good metrics of success coming from the only two people in the Guild capable of using the Three Great Magics. Yeah, right.

"C'mon, people wanna say hi!" Lucy just about throws her over her shoulder in her haste to get her to the table Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel have commandeered. Natsu pauses in his attempt to beat an imprint of Gray's face into the table (using Gray's face, of course), waving cheerily. "Ay, Wendy! You made it!"

"Happy fourteenth, Wendy." It's only by the grace of her enhanced hearing that she's even able to make out what Gray's saying with his face smooshed into the wood.

"Thanks, you guys. What're you-?"

"He lost a bet," Gajeel snorts, toying with a chunk of metal that might have once been part of a functional tire rim. He twists the pieces around delicately, holding it out to Natsu every so often so the Fire Dragon Slayer can heat it up red-hot and then Gajeel twists it even more, eyeing her every so often. Eventually he holds up a delicate tiara whose swirling cloud designs she's only able to catch a glimpse of before he settles it on her head.

"A'ight, that's our gift. Think Gray was supposed to add crystals, but…" Gajeel waves at the duo. "When he's not concussed. But I hear you can fix all that now."

"Thank you for this." Wendy touches the tiara with trembling fingers, unable to discern _what_ it is that's raging in her chest. Joy, yes, love, certainly, but there's the metallic taste of anger on her tongue because _where was this earlier_? She can't remember the last time she spoke to Gajeel, or even _saw_ him for that matter. Whatever happened to toughing it out together? To being her _family_? Just like always, she's-

Wendy pinches herself when she's sure nobody's looking. What the hell? Where did _that_ come from?

"I don't think this is working," Natsu announces, loosening his grip on Gray's hair with a pout. "We only cracked the wood 'n Mira's gonna get pissed."

"Wendy, do you mind…?" Gray trails off, prodding his beat up face. It only takes her a few minutes and a surprisingly small amount of magic to heal up the cosmetic injuries, and then about that long to make sure he's not actually concussed.

"You're getting good at this," Gray compliments, ruffling her hair in thanks. "Next thing you know you'll be in the middle of the battlefield healing and kicking ass at the same time."

"Not if we kick all the ass first!" Natsu shouts. Her smile slips, not enough to be noticed, but enough that she finds her excuse to leave them in the form of Mira looking for her by the cake.

Of course they'll kick ass first. She'll beat all of them in the hospital, but they'll still beat her in the real world. They have the edge that's been digging into her since day one and she's so numb to it she can't find it in her to get upset anymore. All she _can_ do is adjust the tiara, plaster on a bright smile, and count the days until the week is over.

It turns out Mira wants her to stand in front of the cake while the whole Guild sings her 'happy birthday'. The next thirty seconds are the most horrifying of her life and she wants to sink into the floor with every strum of the guitar somebody forgot to hide from Gajeel. There are some who are _clearly_ enjoying this - Team Natsu, Shadow Gear, Juvia - and then there are those that are only mumbling the lyrics because Mira is walking around with the air of the devil about her.

After that is the cutting of the cake, an activity made much more complicated by the fact that Erza offers her a sword twice the size of her body to use as a knife. "It is a Fairy Tail tradition!"

" _Literally_ you are the only person to do this, Erza!" Bixlow yells, his floating babies chanting, "Only, only, only!"

"Dude, somebody just get her a normal knife. The fuck is Doranbolt when you need him?"

"Isn't his name Mest?"

"I thought Mest was his fake name?"

"No, Doranbolt was his fake name, then he lied about being Mest, but he was really lying about that to be Doranbolt, which is the real lie."

"Dude, what the _fuck_."

"God, I know…"

Wendy is so distracted by the mention of her best friend's name she winds up allowing Erza to 'assist' her in cutting off a piece of cake that promptly gets smashed into her face. Wendy blinks, wiping frosting off her eyes and mouth, and with a flick of the wrist (and a little bit of wind magic, who's she kidding), catches Erza in the back.

"She's lived fourteen good years, rest in peace," Cana says with a solemn salute.

"Cake fight!" Natsu screeches, and then it all goes to _hell_.

"Hey, Jet, you mentioned Mest. Is he here?" Wendy dodges a stray chunk of cake, accepting the damp towel Droy offers her.

Jet shrugs. "Yeah, he stopped by earlier to drop off your gift, then said somethin' bout an emergency and zapped off."

"Your gifts are on the second floor, by the way," Droy adds kindly. "I don't think anybody would mind if you dipped up for a minute, yeah?"

If they notice she's gone, _that'll_ be the real gift. She makes her way upstairs, using her magic to deflect stray objects, making sure they hit the floor and not another person. She's never been to this part of the second floor before because it's off-limits to non-S-Class, so really the only person who uses it is Laxus - lo and behold, he's seated by the railing, watching the war below with amusement.

"Not going to join in?" Wendy takes a seat across from him.

"You have any idea how much this coat costs, kid? No, they can sort themselves out," he snorts. Wendy has no doubt it has more to do with the fact that if she joins in any semblance of a fair fight will go out the window and he'll emerge victorious.

They settle into a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the rustle of gifts as Wendy sorts through them looking for Mest's. It stings that he can't be here but she gets it. He's busy dealing with split loyalties to institutions that have shattered his psyche, leaving her to slip between the cracks of his mind. Some days are better than others, but isn't that just the truth of it for all of them? Some days she's the wind skittering through and breathing life into everyone, leaving little bits of herself in the people she surrounds herself with, and others she's hiding up in the rafters where the only person she has to answer to is herself.

(But answering to herself is _terrifying_ because half the time she doesn't even know what the question is.)

Mest's gift turns out to be a set of hair-clips the colour of sunset, smooth as water-worn stone.

"I think it's time I cut my hair," Wendy says suddenly, toying with the clips. They'll hold her bangs back nicely.

"Big change."

"A good one, I think. It'll make it easier to work in the hospital if I don't have to keep adjusting my hair ties."

When Laxus finally looks at her, there's nothing but a sad sort of understanding in his dark eyes. "Change is good, but too much too quickly and you might regret it later on. I know I did."

* * *

"She's up at five," Geneva sings, slinging her arms around Wendy's neck in a tight hug. "Look at you go, girl!"

Alvarado claps Wheeler on the shoulder. "Speaking of up, is that your name I see shortlisted for Dean of Medicine, man?"

"Ah, yeah. Stella's retiring in a couple months," Wheeler says abashedly. A couple people hoot and whistle - one person shouts "You looking to shortlist a wife, too?" - and Wendy claps politely along with the others.

"If I knew all it took was training a little genius to get the attention of the higher-ups, I would've done this a lot sooner," Alvarado says with a heavy sigh, cuffing him around the neck and drawing him close. "Instead I'm stuck with a couple of dumb-fuck interns and medical students who can't tell their ass from their mouth if you gave them an interactive map…"

"Oh, hey, speaking of higher-ups, Porlyusica's been looking for you, kid," Geneva says. "Want me to let her know when you're free?"

Porlyusica. Wendy's mouth runs dry as she thinks about her former mentor. The last time they'd even sat down in the same room was when Wheeler hired her the first time around. A lifetime ago, the thought of the great healer seeking _her_ out specifically would have made her day - even just being able to help restock her medical supplies and listening to her criticize her every move, that was the sort of thing that used to be able to keep her up at night with a smile on her face.

Now she's just _pissed_. Where the hell does she get off trying to look for her now when Porlyusica's been perfectly capable of sending her here for special training all these years? Was this all part of some deranged joke meant to keep her behind her peers? Or was Porlyusica just _that_ greedy that she wanted to be the best and leave Wendy in the dust? She wouldn't put it past her at this point.

Grandeeney wouldn't have done this. Grandeeney would have had her working with patients and training to be a powerful Slayer and healer at the same time, because _no_ child of hers would fall short of one of Igneel's or Metalicana's.

"You can always take a break and hang out with her," Wheeler suggests with a warm smile. "Seriously, we get it if you want to-"

"No," Wendy says quickly, "No, I like it better here."

There's nothing warm about his eyes as he responds. "Good."

* * *

At first, there's silence. In a hospital, silence is never good. Wendy thinks nothing of it, initially. She barely notices the difference, caught up in charting and running through notes that have long been burned into memory. It can't hurt to study them a little more, just to be sure, in the same way that it's okay to stay a little longer practicing stitches until her fingers go numb, or doing one last round. Just a little more, just a little longer, just _one last thing_ , and maybe she can finally break from five to four.

Wheeler is anxious, and that makes _her_ anxious. He rubs his hands together until they turn red, then runs them through his brown hair, tugging it sharply, before drawing them down over his face and starting all over again.

"It's kinda q-"

"Alvarado, I swear to _fucking_ god, if you finish that sentence I'm gonna give you an alcohol enema."

"But am I wrong?" Alvarado challenges, pointing to their table. "Even _Wheeler's_ getting antsy!"

"Don't jinx us," Wheeler says absently, scrawling his signature on papers he's not fully reading. Wendy notes which files those are so she can go back and fix them later.

The door opens and one of Alvarado's interns walks in whistling. "Hey guys! Geez, it's kinda quiet out there, eh?"

Every pager in the room starts _blaring_. Alvarado pins his intern with a look so cold it curdles her blood and she's not even on the receiving end. "After this, I'm getting you reassigned to psych, you _fuck_."

Psych's sort of a hellscape from what Wendy's heard, so she offers the terrified intern a half-smile as she speed-walks down the hall to the ER. Her muscles cramp up, breath quickening, as she fights the urge to bolt down the hallway. There is no running in a hospital, only speed-walking, no matter _how_ sick the adrenaline is making her.

The ER is in _chaos_.

Beds are full of blood and moaning bodies, and more are being wheeled in by field medics. Those not in immediate danger are being hurried away to sit against the walls, and nurses and doctors trip over outstretched limbs and their own tangible panic as they try to figure out what the _hell_ is going on and _who_ is doing _what_.

Wendy's foot catches on a patient curled up on the floor. She drops to a crouch, magic in her palms before she can think to do it consciously, and presses them to his chest. "Sir? Are you-"

No heartbeat.

"VSA!" Wendy shouts, shrill and barely comprehensible. "VSA! I need-"

Wheeler slaps a hand to the man's head, shaking his head. "Internal decap, they moved him too quick."

"But-"

"His fucking spinal column has been severed for at least ten minutes, Wendy, he's fucking dead. Find your next patient," Wheeler snarls, ripping a penlight off a passing doctor's coat and heading off to a teen nearby clutching one side of his face.

He's fractured his cheekbone. Natsu holds himself exactly like that when he does.

She can fix that.

Wendy ignores the man whose gushing femoral artery is clearer to her ears than his anguished screams. Alvarado can handle the woman slowly turning cyanotic - a pneumothorax, the breathing quality spells it all.

It takes two minutes to fix the boy's cheekbone. Another minute to find the intracranial bleeding. Ten to fix that, or conserve her magic and let the others handle it?

Somebody is choking on their crushed windpipe nearby. The two medical students attending don't know what to do.

Sky magic slips through his skull, looking for the bleed.

He's asleep when she finishes. Numbly, she checks his vitals. They're within normal limits, so she needs to flag down a nurse or a doctor to take over. There's nothing else she can do.

All around her, the seamless teamwork and brilliance of her peers falls apart. There's no order, not a single free hand to help and people are _dying_ , there are so many _dying_. The decay dances on her skin, testing, testing, testing the gag reflex she thought she longer had.

Four floors above her, there is a baby being born. There is a preemie being taken out of the NICU to go home. A child has been cured of cancer. Somebody is finding out they are pregnant.

Three feet in front of her, somebody chokes on their own blood, grey as the tiles they're curled up on.

What the _hell_ is she supposed to do?

The next person. Find the next person.

There will always be another person.

"Listen up!" Wendy shouts, channeling every ounce of a person she doesn't know - but she _does_ , she _does_ know. She is Laxus, Natsu, Gajeel, she is _Grandeeny's_ chosen one, she is _Wendy Marvell_. The medical students freeze, but the others carry on, half an ear on her.

"First years partner with your upperclassmen! Teams of two or three, then start triage! Tag green, yellow, red! Greens move to the third floor, oncology! Yellows go to the left and then the overflow! Reds go to the right and stay here for immediate stabilization before being moved to ICU or whatever unit they need!" There's a second of hesitation, one that sends a cold lance through her abdomen - shit, is she doing this right? Or is she making a fool out of herself? Fuck, she probably is, isn't she, _goddamit-_!

"You heard her! Let's go!" Wheeler barks, and then there's life and the tightness in her lungs eases up. Okay. Okay, she can do this. She's doing this.

"Geneva, call the OR, all hands on deck and I want every surgeon who's off to get back on!"

_One, two, three, easy, easy, easy. Just like the books say, just like you read. You've been training for this, you've been waiting for this moment. You know what to do._

"Alvarado, run point with the medical students, if they need anything, tell me!"

_You're doing this, you're fine, it's another day, it's just another day, one person at a time, just one, just one. This is your birthright, this is where you shine._

"Wheeler! Where are the other two magical healers? Get them here to look after the red tags!"

_Another day at Fairy Tail, Natsu's fighting with Gray, they got Laxus involved, what do you do, what do you do._

Wendy snaps on her gloves and finds the biggest bleeder in the room, hands steady as she presses into the wound.

 _I am Wendy_ goddamn _Marvell, and this is_ my _battlefield._


	2. the fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Happy Wednesday everyone! Thank you for your support in the last chapter, I'm glad you liked it. Mild warning for briefly described gore in this chapter, but it's nothing extensive.
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does.

_this tiny little box echoes with your rage_

_not since poor old pandora has so much venom been unleashed_

_by simply opening a box_

_-’caixa de raiva’ tourniquet_

* * *

Wendy is on-call overnight on Mondays The pager will wake her up one, two, three times a night, and she is so _goddamn_ grateful because it’s her only tether to this world. Dealing with codes and emergency consults, breathing life into one patient and calling time on another, is easier than the disjointed framework of her mind.

Somebody will ask if their shift can be covered on Tuesday - a birthday, anniversary, appointment. They stop giving explanations after a while because Wendy will take it no matter what. 

Grand rounds on Wednesday are a test. Wheeler trusts her enough to lead first-years and those in need of shadowing hours through the motions; small injuries, easy fixes. Really, it’s because where his healing prowess ends hers begins and he can’t teach her anything she hasn’t already learned. Still, she likes Wednesdays because Wednesdays remind her why she does this in the first place.

Thursdays they tell her to take a break. She goes to the apartment, showers, debates going to the Guild to get a hot, fresh dinner, but then remembers she hasn’t been to the Guild since Asuka’s birthday six months ago. Protein bars from the hospital vending machine aren’t a terrible dinner; it’s hard to sleep on a full stomach in the on-call room, anyway.

Fridays are for surgeries. She lies when she says Wednesdays are the best. On Fridays, she does back to back surgeries and depletes her magical reserves so far down she forgets why she hates sleeping in the first place.

She goes to the apartment on the weekends. Saturday will be spent obsessively cleaning everything until it smells like the OR and she can nap on the sofa for a few hours until she jerks awake with her nails ripping into the fabric. 

Sundays find her in the medical section of the library, where the complex diagrams of the books keep her occupied until her shift starts and then she’s sprinting for her coat.

Wendy’s name hasn’t budged from _number one_ in eight months.

(There is no joy in that.

There is no joy in anything.)

* * *

“You know what you need, kid?” Alvarado starts one day. He calls her kid even though he’s helped her crack open a person’s chest before. She doesn’t think she’s a _kid_ anymore, but it feels good anyway, like a warm fire-

She stops herself before she can finish that thought.

“A pay raise?” Wendy jokes, waiting for the others in the room to titter, mutter their ‘amens’, before relaxing. Hospital humour is an incredibly delicate art that she’s still learning her way around. Salary jokes are always safe, and so are jokes about running too many hours. Gallows humour is only allowed _after_ bad calls, unless you’re a senior doctor who _knows_ , and even then there’s a time period you have to wait before it’s okay. Nobody tells you how long to wait, you just _know_.

“A _break_ ,” he says, jabbing a thumb at Geneva. “Physician burnout is _real_ , and she’s a prime example.”

Geneva doesn’t look up from the labs in front of her as she retorts, “I hear natural funerals are all the rage these days, Alvarado.”

“I can see your bald patches with your hair up.”

“Bad idea to piss off the girl with the toxicology background.”

The other thing about hospital humour is that joking about two people getting together is the most surefire way to make sure they _don’t_ , so Wendy looks up at the same time Wheeler does and they roll their eyes in tandem. 

“No, but seriously, Wendy,” Alvarado says. There’s a joke about how he’s _never_ serious on her tongue but she has to swallow it back because he’s looking at her like she broke the sterile field with her own blood.

It’s three, isn’t it? Time for rounds. Or, wait, no, Nishino’s on rounds. If she sneaks out now she can join, or maybe just steal rounds from him. Unless he’s still _pissed_ about her knocking him down to twenty a year or maybe two ago. She lost track of time. They always need an extra hand down at the ER. Pulmonology has four-point restraints to keep her in their unit, they won’t mind. Anywhere but here, because she knows goddamn well what Alvarado’s going to say next and she’s queasy just thinking about it. 

“Take a week or so off.”

_They don’t want her here._

“I’m fine,” Wendy says automatically. The board next to her hasn’t changed. Her name is written in permanent ink at the top spot because _nobody_ is going to beat her, but the anxiety beating a hole through her won’t die down until she checks again, just to be sure. 

They don’t want her but they _need_ her.

“So was Geneva. Then she almost got hit by a car because she was in here for so long she forgot crosslights were a thing,” Alvarado retorts, looking to the anaesthesiologist for backup. 

Geneva doesn’t bite back for once. Her shoulders buckle as if there’s an actual, physical weight on them and _fuck_ if Wendy doesn’t feel it dragging her down most days, too. She’s learned to make peace with this weight, keeps it tucked at the base of her spine and begs it to stay put just until they turn in for the night where it’s free to break her in two.

Geneva, though, Geneva doesn’t break. Bends, bows, deforms under the shear stresses, but doesn’t break. “I think a week or two off is good for you. You haven’t been to that Guild of yours in a while, and you’ve not used your offensive magic since then, either. That can’t be good for you.”

“It’s not,” Wheeler pipes up even though _nobody asked_. Yes, Wendy knows that’s not good for her, why the hell else do they think she’s avoiding the Guild? 

“I have stuff to do.” Her excuse is so lame even the first year studying for Step raises a brow. 

“Do you know how easy it’ll be to get someone to cover for you? Go. Be with your friends,” Wheeler cajoles with an easy smile, but his eyes are cool. “You need the rest. That’s an order.”

_Well, fuck._

* * *

She ends up getting two weeks off. Most people would be crying tears of joy but Wendy mostly just wants to cry. She hasn’t cried in a long time, though, not even when she has to tell someone their family member has died. Her throat used to get tight, eyes all prickly, and she’d have to excuse herself after a short while. Much like slowly lowering herself onto a bed of spikes, Wendy didn’t realize she’d stopped feeling at all until she called time and her first thought was ‘ _wonder what’s for dinner?_ ’

(She’d cried after that and never again.)

Wendy goes about cleaning her room for three days straight. One of those days is devoted to organizing her bed; at some point between August and October it’d turned into storage for things she got too lazy to fold or put away. There are trinkets there she doesn’t remember owning: a diamond-studded bracelet she knows is Lucy’s, expired coupons to a bakery Erza frequents, the latest book in a series both she and Gray are fond of, a mission request from three months ago. 

Maybe she _will_ go to the Guild soon. 

But first, groceries.

* * *

Just her fucking luck, the Guild finds her first.

Actually, it’s not the _Guild_ that finds her first so much as it is Mest tripping over her crouched form in the sauces aisle. The bottle of soy sauce in his grasp shatters into a billion pieces on the tile beside her, splashing up and staining her dress, but holy _fuck_ she can’t find it in her to care.

 _Mest is here_.

“Wendy?” he says, stunned, looking down at her like she’s risen from the dead. “Holy - _Wendy_?”

“Mest,” she chokes out, willing her heart to stop pounding so fiercely in her ears. Her legs are going numb at the angle she’s at but if she moves she’ll shatter, too, she just knows it. “What’re...you’re back.”

“Yeah, I moved in next door to Lucy, actually,” he says, half-ready to hug her, half-ready to bolt. He looks... _better_. His hair is a lot more kempt, styled to look carefully tousled instead of a spiky bush, a roundness to his face and clarity to his eyes she’s not seen in a long time. Where is that bedraggled man she remembers from the Games, camouflaged underneath all that Council grandeur as if he could hide the years lost to oblivion from her?

 _Happy_ , her mind supplies, trying to reconcile the two images of him, _he’s happy now._

Happy. That’s the word. She’s not seen it in a while.

“Wait - next door to Lucy? Since when?” Lucy never mentioned this the last time they met up - well, shit, when did they last meet up? Asuka’s birthday? There’s no way it’s been that long. It can’t have been.

“Four, five months now?” Okay, so just _after_ Asuka’s birthday, which means...Wendy swallows thickly, feeling a lot smaller than she is. Shit. _Shit_.

“Oh. Um. I didn’t...I’ve been busy,” she says lamely, looking for patterns in the soy sauce splatter. There’s a rabbit, there’s a star, there’s her dignity, rapidly morphing into disgrace. 

“I’ve heard. Hey, we should-”

“Hey!” A store manager snaps, stomping towards them from the opposite end of the aisle. “You can’t just destroy-”

Wendy’s hand snags Mest’s shirt at the same time his hand wraps around her bicep, and she braces herself for the familiar tug around her navel that drags her home.

When she opens her eyes, they’ve both crash landed in the middle of an arm-wrestling contest between Gajeel and Natsu, broken the table and also maybe Mest’s ribs.

“Wendy?” Natsu yells, “Holy _fuck_ , you’re back!”

“The fuck, lil’ blue? We really thought you’d gone and died on us or somethin’,” Gajeel says gruffly, fighting back the stupid grin she loves so much.

Mira bursts into tears, and, nearby, so does Lucy.

“Wendy,” Mest wheezes, pushing her off his chest gently. “Wendy, ribs broke. _Help_.”

A minute to heal his ribs. A minute more to stand up and smooth her dress down. Thirty seconds to look around and put faces to names. Fifteen seconds to remind herself that _this_ is home.

No hesitation as she smiles softly and waves. “I’m back.”

_For now._

* * *

Mira manages to hold back the crowds for about an hour, which is an impressive feat when you consider the crowd consists of mages who have a single, stubborn brain cell on timeshare between the lot of them, and it’s currently focused on squeezing her _dry._

Her secondary defenses are Mest (to absolutely nobody’s surprise) and Laxus (to _her_ surprise - he plonked down beside her after she found a table and has been listening to his SoundPod since). 

Wendy’s quick to catch on to the rhythm of the interrogation; it’s pimping, but with less cohesion, which means all she has to do is keep it short, simple, and sweet. It works for Wheeler so it should theoretically work for the Guild.

Theory rarely applies to real life the way one intends, which is why things that are best in theory ought to stay just that - theory.

 _“Dude, they keep you in there_ forever _. Isn’t that illegal?”_

_No, I have designated off days, but there’s just so much to catch up on I lose track of time. Plus, it’s fun over there._

_“More fun than being here with us? You never visit anymore!”_

_No, of course not! It’s just that I’m more helpful over there than I am here, I can do more._

_“You do plenty here! C’mon Team Natsu isn’t Team Natsu without you to help!”_

_I know, I’m sorry._

_“They let you do procedures and stuff on your own?”_

_Yes! I’m perfectly capable of it on my own. I even help teach sometimes!_

_“That’s crazy, you must be_ good _.”_

_I think so. Hope so._

_“So, like, what’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?”_

_I had to heal a hand after it went through a meat grinder?_

_“That’s fucking_ nasty _, how didn’t you throw up?”_

_You get used to it after a while._

_“Have you seen a dead body before?”_

_Yes._

_“Was it because they died on-”_

“Enough,” Laxus’s thundering voice kills that question before it kills her. “Everybody go fuck off, you’ve bothered her enough.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs once Romeo slinks off, shooting her an apologetic glance. Wendy forgives him, not entirely because he deserves it but because Erza’s sharpening her swords and eyeing him like he’s her newest shiny target. Nobody deserves _that_.

“They have a point. You _have_ been pretty busy lately.”

“I know.”

“You actually busy or are you _busy_?”

“Actually busy,” Wendy says firmly, cataloging the million little changes she sees. Lucy wears her hair down now. Natsu is a little more subdued. Juvia doesn’t hover over Gray anymore, instead socializing with Levy or Lisanna. Asuka is a whole foot taller. Cana drinks less, and looks more content with life, her eyes no longer chasing after Macao and all those broken dreams. 

Wendy keeps her hair short and uses sunset clips to hold her bangs back and fingers away from running through them.

Laxus sees right goddamn through her anyway.

“Of course,” he acquiesces, “Your best friend finally comes home after months away, is sober, your team misses you, and you don’t have time to drop by and say hi for five minutes.”

Irrational anger burns through her. Does he think she doesn’t _get it_? That she’s _that_ ditzy? Wendy full well knows she’s missing out on important milestones and skimping on her family in order to fix others’. The days bled into weeks and months and before she knew it she was so sucked up in hospital life that she’d missed Lisanna’s birthday and dropping in the next day felt too awkward. So she pushed it off to the next week, but then there was an emergency surgery, and by the time she remembered to visit it had been _two_ weeks - definitely too awkward to visit then. But she couldn’t just attend another Guild event without feeling bad about missing one before, so she skipped all those and made a blood pact to drop in on a free day. Free days are as easy to find as her optimism as of late, so that never happened. She’d run out of excuses right around the same time she’d run out of cares to give, so she packaged away those thoughts for three am and never got around to dealing with them.

But what the fuck, how is he on her about ignoring family when they haven’t come to see her in the hospital since she started? The only time she ever saw them was in triage, so out of it she could be Zeref and they’d be none the wiser. The crippling cold dread that sucked her dry every time she saw their name on the roster kept her far, far away from them, sliding treatment suggestions to the doctors in charge from behind the corner. 

Whatever the fuck happened to _family_ and _looking out for one another_? Lucy gets sick, misses a festival, and Natsu uproots a tree for her. Gildartz comes back after months of bumming it in the woods and they don’t think twice before breaking out the good stuff, no questions or teasing comments. Somebody holes up for a few days and they’re invading each others houses, ready to drag them back. Where the hell was _that_ for her? Or do they reserve this kind of treatment for those who’ve bled for the Guild and proven their worth? 

Wendy doesn’t do that. She just stands on the sidelines and fixes whoever needs fixing so they can go back out there and bleed some more.

“I should head to the apartment,” Wendy says tightly, rising out of her seat. “It’s late, I have a lot of sleep to catch up on.”

“The breakfast special tomorrow is crepes,” Laxus comments like he’s reading the weather, smiling a little when she raises a brow. “Don’t tell anyone I told you or it’ll sell out before you get here.”

That’s an order if she’s ever heard one. “Bar opens at seven, right?”

“If you arrive early enough you might get the fresh strawberries.”

Wendy hates strawberries, but she sets her internal clock for six on the dot anyway.

* * *

_Skeletons are spewing from the Eclipse Gate._

_Pungent rot fills her lungs, and every breath feels like choking on thick oil. Even her own magic is corrupt, unable to cleanse the air._

_Around her, the world falls apart._

_The sky is a dizzying kaleidoscope that shifts and fades in and out until she can’t put names to the colours - except the moon, bright red and cackling up above, a spotlight for the destruction. Buildings are pitch black and loom above her so high they curve together and collide and crash and build up again from the ashes._

_“Wendy,” Natsu giggles, eyes bright, bright, bright green and glowing. “Look, Wendy. I’m all fired up.”_

_His torso is flayed open in a Y-incision, ribs cracked and spread apart. Fire burns where his heart should be, dripping tar in place of his lungs. Wendy lurches forward, hands flowing with blood, and presses them to Natsu’s chest. The fire doesn’t burn or spread or go cold or vanish. It burns and burns and her hand goes right through it and does nothing._

_“I’ll keep you safe.” Spikes of ice jut out from Gray’s back where his intervertebral discs should be instead. She can see the bony prominences of his spine crack under the pressure as he moves. “Stay back.”_

_“No, I need to help,” Wendy exclaims, abandoning Natsu for him. She touches the ice and it turns blood red. “Stay still, I can help.”_

_“It’s okay, Wendy,” Erza gargles; there’s a sword through her throat. She pulls it out and slices open her carotid artery, spraying blood all over her. “We understand.”_

_“We’ll save you. You run away.”_

_“I’m not running away!” Wendy screams, “I’m not! I swear I just - I got busy! I can help you! I can heal you!”_

_“We need to fight,” Gray says, shattering his entire thoracic spine and ragdolling to the ground. “We fight.”_

_“I can fight, too,” Wendy says desperately, struggling against the decaying hands that rip out of the ground and wrap around her ankles. She looks down and freezes. There’s a diamond-studded bracelet on one of its wrists._

_“No you don’t. You don’t even visit anymore.”_

_There’s a body staggering towards them. The parts of it that haven’t sloughed off the bone are either bloated, leaking pus and tar, or shriveled right up and dangling off. Vitreous fluid rolls down its mottled face like tears, and when it opens its mouth, oily black slick spills forth._

_“I’ll fight, look! Sky Dragon’s Roar!”_

_Wind slices through the corpse, and to Wendy’s horror, instead of falling apart, it pieces together. Muscles and skin knit together before her eyes, forming pale skin and thin limbs. Blue hair flows from its skull, falling in waterfall thick waves down its back, draping over its narrow shoulders. When it looks up, it has cold brown eyes framed with dark circles._

_“Oh, Wendy,” the other Wendy croons, “What’re you thinking?”_

_Impossible._

_Wendy can’t heal herself._

* * *

“You look like crap,” Laxus greets her the next morning, “Did you sleep at all?”

“Yes. Just too early,” Wendy yawns, hoping he’ll accept the lie. It _is_ 6:30 on the dot, after all.

Truth is, Wendy didn’t sleep a wink after she awoke from the dream, only an hour after she’d finally drifted off. While not the first time a nightmare ripped her awake, it _had_ been the first time the decay had followed her into the real world. Brushing her teeth six times had done nothing but make her gums bleed, so she eventually gave up and ate a bag of salt and vinegar chips, hoping to numb her taste buds for a while.

“Do you need some tea, Wendy?” Mira inquiries kindly, looking way too chipper for the time it is. She’s the last to leave and the first to arrive, where does she get the _energy_?

“Coffee, please. Black.”

Mira pours her a cup, sliding it over. “Since when do you drink coffee?”

“Keeps me up in a pinch,” she murmurs, taking a sip and nearly ascending right there and then. Hospital coffee is garbage and she can never go back now. It’s not overly bitter, smooth down her throat, and doesn’t jumpstart her entire system - her body wakes up piece by piece like it’s natural; hello brain, hello eyes, wiggle ten fingers, check.

“I’m assuming you’re both her for crepes?”

“Vanilla base,” Laxus orders. Wendy’s too far gone in the coffee to make a face or scoff, but she’d never have pegged him as a vanilla fan. She says as much after she asks for chocolate and Mira wanders off to the back.

“It’s a good flavour if done right.”

“It’s plain.”

“Nothing wrong with plain. Not everything has to be overdone to be enjoyable,” he replies, taking a swig of his own massive cup of coffee. Mira didn’t ask _him_ why he was drinking it, she thinks petulantly. Why is it whenever she does something new everybody makes such a fuss about it? 

“Yeah, but with all the flavours you could go for, why vanilla? It doesn’t have as much to offer as chocolate or strawberry. Then you get into stuff like rocky road or birthday cake...you’d still choose vanilla?”

“Sure.” Laxus shrugs, resting his elbows on the bar top and bracing his chin on an upturned palm. “Synthetic vanilla tastes like garbage. Genuine vanilla costs a lot to produce - very specific harvesting methods - but once you’ve had a taste, you’ll never go back. It pairs well with everything, isn’t flashy, gets the job done...criminally underrated, but then again, that’s what makes it so great. All underrated things are.”

“Not all underrated things,” Wendy retorts, feeling immensely defensive for no reason at all. She counts to ten and waits for her head to stop pounding, takes another sip of her coffee, blanching at the dregs. 

“Most are. Ever wonder why those who appreciate the underrated things defend it the most?”

“Because nobody else cares?”

“No, because they were that person once, too. And they get it.”

There it is again, that _infuriating_ ‘I get it’. What does he _get_ ? He’s _Laxus Dreyar_ , born into greatness and walking around with enough power to kill a god if he felt the whim. Does he understand walking around with a black hole in his chest that grows bigger every time he’s overshadowed by his teammates? Living in a constant state of panic and trying to interject himself into every mission taken just to try and prove his worth? Of course he doesn’t. People try and suck up to _him_ , not the other way around.

She drinks the dregs and hopes the acid burns the spikes in her throat.

“Vanilla for you, and chocolate for you...would you like more coffee, Wendy?” 

Wendy stuffs a massive chunk of crepe into her mouth, nodding furiously. She doesn’t trust herself to speak without her voice cracking, but she sort of regrets doing that because the ice-cream is so cold her teeth burn. She swallows and takes a massive sip of coffee, then gags - _terrible_ idea, now her tongue is _actually_ burning and her teeth just feel like they’re drilling deeper into her gums, causing her eyes to prickle.

“Brain freeze?” Laxus quips, pursing his lips. Mira has enough sense to cover her mouth to hide her smile. 

Wendy glowers, taking another massive bite. She _officially_ has a point to prove.

The seat next to her wobbles as Mest Direct Lines right into it. “Hey! Oh, man, is that a crepe? I came on time! Lemme try-” he takes the extra fork and somehow manages to lift up half the remaining crepe and pop it into his mouth.

Then he tears up, swallows, and goes for her coffee, moaning in agony. “Brain freeze! Brain freeze! Shit, ow, shit-!”

“Strawberry?” Mira guesses.

“Yes, please. Ow. Fuck. Wait, no, not fuck. Sorry, Wendy.”

“I’ve heard worse.” Seriously, do they think she lives in a bubble? She’s had screaming patients threaten to rip her innards out of her behind with the most colourful insults possible. ‘Fuck’ registers to her the same way ‘hello’ does.

“Still. Anyway, you’re here!” Mest looks over her head, pales, and backtracks, “No, I mean, here early! It’s been a while since I saw you! This...early…”

“Crepes,” she deadpans, shoving the rest of her plate his way. “My teeth hurt too much, can you…?

The plate is wiped clean in a blink. _Men._

“Got any plans for the day? Gonna take a job? Chill? Hang out?” Mest quizzes, somehow managing to speak around the gobs of food in his mouth. It takes a lot to gross her out these days and even _she_ has to hide a little shiver. 

Laxus, sharing her sentiment, reaches over and forces his mouth shut. “Eat, then talk. Who raised you?”

“If memory serves me right, Makarov, but I can’t be too sure.”

“I think I’ll just sit here,” Wendy answers loudly, just in time to prevent Laxus from saying something rude. “There’s not much else to do.”

“A mission!” Mest stresses, “It’s been so long, we should all go on one!”

“She should go on one with her team,” Laxus retorts, “ _You_ should be upstairs filling out paperwork like you’re supposed to.”

“Whoops, look at the time, got a hair appointment!”

“...did he just leave us with the bill?”

“He’s got a tab, don’t worry.”

The early risers of the Guild trickle in slowly, and for a while it’s peaceful. Laxus doesn’t budge from his spot beside her other than to go grab a couple files from the back to work on, leaving Wendy to people-watch and think. The latter is always a dangerous road to go down, but there’s nothing else to do until Natsu and the rest arrive. 

A mission. It’s a guilty, uncomfortable feeling that settles in when she realizes she hasn’t been on one with her team in almost a year. She was _busy_ (the excuse grows weaker with every repetition), of course she couldn’t join them for their monster fighting journeys. Besides, she rationalizes, they’re probably better off without her tagging along for those. Support magic is incredibly draining and also her only strong suit in combat, meaning she can either cast it and stand back, or not cast it and defend herself properly. Casting it led to the rest of the team dividing their attention between the fight and keeping her safe, so with her out of the picture they were probably cruising through missions at full power.

 _That_ does little to comfort her. Dragon Slayers aren’t supposed to be this easily forgotten or erasable - everybody knows who Acnologia is and he’s been a phantom for four-hundred years and counting. She can’t raze kingdoms to the ground; she can barely land a hit without breaking a part of herself by accident. If she dies in battle to gain that kind of notoriety, will it even last long enough to make a difference? Will they speak about her in reverent whispers in the Guild, or will she just become a hospital legend?

Knowing the way the world works, they’ll name a wing after her in the hospital and that’ll be it.

“I’m going to check the mission board,” Wendy announces, sliding off her chair and heading over. It’s loaded with the usuals: security detail, monster terrorizing a small town, minor Guild terrorizing the same small town, construction, thieves to apprehend...there’s one about a poisoning that catches her attention immediately. She rips it off the board and drinks in the details. Seizures, clotting disorders, organ failure...the real kicker is the pancytopenia. There aren’t a lot of toxins she can think of off the top of her head that can cause _that_.

A tanned hand snatches the paper out of her grasp. “Oh, man, this looks _boring_. C’mon, Wendy, your first mission back has to be _exciting_! We gotta get all fired up!”

“It looks fine to me,” Wendy says defensively. Why the hell does everything have to be _explosions_ with him? Half the time they barely rake in enough of the prize money to split between them fairly because they cause so much damage. This is nice, simple, straightforward.

“What about this one? Wyvern,” Gray drawls, picking out one of the hundred monster missions pinned to the board. 

“Boring. We did a wyvern last week.”

“And you almost got crushed by it. Is wittle baby Natsu afwaid of the big bad wyvern?”

“In your _dreams_ , droopy-eyes! I’ll kick a wyvern’s ass any day!”

“Can’t even kick _my_ ass, what do you mean a _wyvern_?”

“Good morning, boys,” Erza greets sunnily, “We’re not fighting, are we?”

“No ma’am!”

“Absolutely not!”

Lucy snickers, squeezing Wendy in a one-armed hug in greeting. “ _Babies_ . Anyway, what about this one? Look at the _Jewels_ , I’ll be able to pay rent _and_ get that crystal dip pen I saw yesterday…”

“Wyverns terrorizing town,” Erza reads, nodding in approval. “It’s close enough that we can visit the poisoned town afterwards if you so wish, Wendy.”

“Sounds good,” Wendy agrees, slowly unclenching her fists and rubbing away the little half-moons carved into her palms. “When do we leave?”

“Now, and we can make it back by evening.”

* * *

They don’t make it back by evening. In fact, they don’t even find their _first target_ until evening. Between Natsu needing a break to recover from getting sick on the train, them stopping for lunch, waiting for Natsu to recover from getting sick from overeating, and then Gray and Natsu giving each other broken noses that each take a while to heal because they won’t stop squirming, they reach the client’s house by three in the afternoon and are back on the road by four. They’d have reached the den half-past that, but Gray says something that pisses Natsu off and they spend the better part of that hour demolishing a few acres of perfectly good forest before Erza beats sense into them.

Wendy thinks of the chaos of the ER longingly. If only she were there and not here. If only.

“Alright, so here’s the plan,” Erza says seriously, forcing them to stop just short of the end of the path. “Natsu and Gray will lead the first line of attack in order to preserve the element of surprise and catch the nest off guard. After that, myself and Lucy will enter the heart of the den and pick off from there. Natsu and Gray will join us after, and Wendy will provide support to whoever needs it.”

“Of course,” Wendy barely manages to bite back the sarcastic edge to her already annoyed tone. “Never mind that I can fight just fine. I’ll join the first wave.”

“Yo, Wendy, I just think ‘cause we’re in teams of two it’s best if-”

“Good thing I can deal enough damage for two,” Wendy cuts Natsu off snidely, adjusting her clips so her hair is out of her face. She takes a second to smooth out the tips, just to reassure herself they still touch her shoulders and not her elbows.

Natsu and Gray exchange a look that only serves to make her teeth grind together harder. Do they really think so little of her after all this time? She’ll show them. She’ll show them so good they never think twice about throwing her on the front lines.

“Let’s go, then,” Erza orders after a hesitant beat. 

Wendy’s already gone. 

Entering the cave with Natsu and Gray on her heels, she doesn’t have time to let the wave of nausea and doubt wash over her because she blinks and there’s six wyverns snarling in her face. Natsu leaps forward like the world is his springboard, fist on fire, and catches one of the wyverns in the jaw with a sickening crack that sends it crashing into the cave wall. The cave trembles, and her tenuous grip on reality wavers as Gray slams his hands on the ground, coating it in ice that shoots up, impaling a wyvern’s wings.

_Spikes of ice jut out from Gray’s back where his intervertebral discs should be instead._

“Wendy!” Gray shouts. Wendy flips out of the way, landing on a flat portion of rock well out of the way from where the wyvern’s claws slash through the ground.

 _My head was there_ , she thinks clinically, _my head was there. That could’ve been my head. My face. I almost died._

She doesn’t feel sick. She doesn’t feel anything at all. The sky is blue, the human body has five litres of blood on average, and all of that would’ve come spilling out because she almost died. Isn’t that funny? She almost _died_ , she’s a real Fairy, now. Natsu and Gray will worship the ground she walks on now. She’s just like them.

_Vitreous fluid rolls down its mottled face like tears-_

_My_ head _was there._

“Sky Dragon’s Roar!” Wendy snarls, exhaling so forcefully her ribs crack under the compression. The cyclone blasts the wyvern’s head clean off, and for a second she’s paralyzed with fear, waiting for the head to grow back with cold eyes, but the beast drops to the ground, twitching. That'll stop soon. It happens sometimes in freshly dead bodies. 

Wheeler’s harsh face flashes before her own, fuming. _Find your next patient._

_There will always be another person._

“Fire Dragon’s Roar!” 

A pillar of fire rushes past her towards the incoming wave of wyverns. Wendy crouches down, breathing heavily, and thinks past the agonizing ache in her lungs. Gray is next to Natsu, Natsu is behind her. The ice is melting, the fire is raging, and the wind, the wind-

Simple combustion reaction.

“Sky Dragon’s Roar!” If the earlier attack didn’t break her ribs, this one certainly did. The air hits Natsu’s fire; for a brief second, there’s nothing but a flare, and then it explodes so violently the shockwaves slam her into the sharp wall. 

“Holy _shit_!” Natsu screeches, “Holy _shit_ , that was so _cool_!”

 _That’s right,_ Wendy thinks victoriously, giddily, _that was cool and I did that._

The urge to look over at them with all the hope and desperation for approval clear on her face is strong, but it’s overpowered by the need to press on. She just helped _demolish_ a cave of wyverns. She! Wendy Marvell! Practically all by herself! The thought makes her shiver a little, and she has to clamp her hands down on her knees to keep herself from floating out of her body she feels so light. _Finally._ The whole cave and _beyond_ and _she_ destroyed it.

_The whole cave._

Adrenaline and agony alike rip through her. Lucy and Erza are in the cave, right past the mouth of the explosion. She can’t find it in her to swallow, but she does anyway, wincing. Okay. Okay, it was a contained explosion. They didn’t scream, they’re probably fine.

 _Or dead_.

“Lucy! Erza!” Wendy shouts hoarsely, staggering forward. “Are you guys okay?”

There’s no response.

Wendy runs.

_It’s fine, they’re just fighting._

_They’re dead, you killed them, you_ killed _them._

_I can heal them, they’re fine. I’m the best healer Fiore has to offer._

_That’s what Wheeler tells you. He’s lying, he’s using you, you know this. You can’t heal them._

_I can heal them. They’re_ fine _. The others do this all the time, they’ve survived worse._

_All it takes is one time._

_Shut up._

_You’re a real Fairy now, got your backstory, don’t you? Think they accept killers?_

_Shut up._

_Killed a whole thing of wyverns and your friends. But they’re not really your friends, they never kept in touch. Does it count?_

_Shut up._

_Your heart is pounding, little girl, are you scared? Scared they’ll know you’re nothing but a waste of breath like you always feared?_

_Shut up._

_You don’t belong anywhere._

_SHUT UP!_

Lucy’s whip slices through the air, wrapping around the mother wyvern’s neck and _tugging._ Erza’s blade, covered in lightning, catches the edge of the river running the length of the whip, sending bolts up to the wyvern’s head. 

It doesn’t do _shit_.

“Ice Make: Pillars!” Gray yells, slamming his palms together. Dozens of thick pillars sprout up from the ground, two of which erupt next to the massive wyvern, trapping it with its body twisted at an angle. It snarls, shattering one with a powerful wing, raising gusts that Wendy _knows_ she can nullify, but her arms refuse to move. Every part of her screams at her to _move_ , a ferocity so bone deep it makes her tremble and ache, but she _can’t_ , she _can’t_.

Natsu leaps from pillar to pillar, landing on the one in front of the wyvern and jumping into the air just as it breaks. He cocks his fist back, roaring, “Fire Dragon’s Iron Fist!” and rams his fiery arm right between its eyes so forcefully its entire head snaps down.

Ice arrows slice through the air and the wyvern’s wings, and it screeches so loudly the very air seems to quake. Wendy drops to her knees, wanting nothing more than to become one with the cave walls. The rock has been here for hundreds of years, survived hundreds of scuffles, and will live to see a hundred more, and she just wants to _survive_.

“Gate of the Lion, Loke!”

Light blinds her, warm and so homey she sinks into it. Home. Home. Warm. Safe. 

_You know what to do._

_I can’t. I’ll just be her again._

_You’ve always been her. You have to._

Wendy slams her palms together and then lashes out, a magic circle swirling under each. “ _Ile Vernier! Ile Armour!_ ”

And just like that, in the same fiery explosion that signalled her rebirth, it’s over.

“I landed the final blow!” Natsu rejoices, pumping his fist into the air. Gray scowls, throwing a chunk of ice at him. “You’re welcome.”

“That took me _out_ ,” Lucy moans, bending backwards and wincing when something cracks back into place. “Fuck rent, I’m heading to the apothecary for some oils…”

Loke perks up. “Perhaps I can assist-”

“Close! Gate of the Lion!”

“That was a well-fought victory. Your support at the end was much needed,” Erza says with a kind smile her way. 

_Less than fifteen muscles to smile. Zygomatic to pull the cheeks up, risorius to pull the lips up. One, two, three. One, two, three. You did good. They said you did good. You helped._

Wendy manages a carefully blank half-smile and holds up her glowing hands. “Let me heal you all.”

It’s hollow. It’s all so painfully hollow inside.

* * *

Wendy walks into the hospital and pauses in the doorway, waiting for the warm rush she always experiences when entering.

There’s nothing.

“Wendy! Oh, thank _god_.” Geneva all but tackles her to the ground. “You missed _so_ much. We had a fucking _leprosy_ breakout that we’re just getting over, it was unbelievable. Alvarado almost nuked one of the interns who perforated a bowel during surgery by accident-”

“As I should have,” Alvarado says with a scowl, clapping her on the shoulder. Wendy is distantly aware that she should shove him back, but she remains still, a careful half-smile on her face. 

“Enjoy your break?”

“Yes, but it’s good to be back,” Wendy says, glad that this, at least, is true. 

“Wheeler said to let you ease back into it today, so we were thinking just basic rounds and then-”

“No!” Wendy cuts Geneva off quickly, gripping her arms. “I’ve...got a lot of pent up energy. What surgeries are open that I can take over? Join in on, whatever?”

Alvarado and Geneva exchange a look that has a phantom ache start up along her jaw. Goddamn it, not them too. Here at least she’s _earned_ it, fucking hell, do they think two weeks is enough to rob her of her strength as a doctor? 

“I think Wheeler was gonna get started on a craniotomy for a glioblastoma multiforme…”

Brain surgery. Fucking _perfect_.

“I’ll scrub in in ten,” Wendy promises, dashing for the OR. It takes her less time than she thought to scrub in and enter the OR just as Wheeler’s finished opening the skull. He looks less than pleased as she joins him.

“Look who’s back. Enjoy your little vacation, Marvell?” 

“Of course. Gave me enough time to regain perspective,” Wendy murmurs, placing glowing hands over the patient’s ears and sending soft pulses of magic through the brain. The tumour is a poisonous dark spot that leeches her magic greedily, but it’s easily found. The surgical tech nearby readies the tools needed to cut through the dura, but Wendy shakes her head.

Novel bone remodelling isn’t the _only_ technique she’s been working on.

Summoning a small amount of air with razor thin precision, Wendy cuts through the meninges and stands back to allow the nurse to drop water in to wash away the accumulating blood. The tumour is fairly close to the surface, meaning this won’t take too long to do - relatively speaking, of course.

“I see you’ve been working in your free time,” Wheeler says, clearly disgruntled. “Any other techniques you’ve got hidden up your sleeve?”

“Plenty. Wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about your capabilities being able to master them,” Wendy says coolly, using the air as an extension of herself to cut through the brain and heal at the same time, stopping errant blood flow or neuronal damage or any other things she can think of on her way through. This requires the utmost concentration, the kind that is only born of years and years of practice, day in and day out, with the kind of single-minded stubbornness that runs ordinary people ragged in their quest for half that kind of perfection.

Wendy’s always been a quick and innovative study. Not many people would have practiced wound care and extraction at the same time on corpses in the morgue during their down time, but then again, Wendy’s not most people.

“I see. So you know.”

“That your intentions were to train me to boost the hospital reputation and shortlist you for Dean of Medicine later on? Yes.”

“You don’t seem mad,” Wheeler notes, the friendly cheer back in his voice. Of all the things he’s taught her, that’s the one thing he skipped over - being able to slip between personas like that with ease. Right now that’s the one thing she _needs_.

“Of course I’m not mad,” Wendy says, using the air in quick, short bursts to cut the tumour off where it’s stuck to the walls. Sweat beads at her temples, and darkness claws at the corner of her visions as her attention goes completely myopic, focused on the tumour and nothing else. “We both have ulterior motives. You’ve achieved yours.”

“And have you?”

Wendy extracts the tumour with magic in one hand and heals the brain with the other. Holding it up to Wheeler, she waits for his approving gaze and swallows thickly when she realizes she gains nothing from it. There’s no rush, no urge to do more to get it again. The euphoria is long gone - Wendy suspects it’s been that way for a while - and she looks for it anyway, because she just the barest _scraps_ of it to stay here. Knowing that it’s _possible_ to achieve that kind of high that tides her over to the next day is enough for her. 

“Not yet, I don’t think.”

Otherwise, she has nothing left.

* * *

“Um, Wendy Marvell?”

Wendy looks up from the charts in her hand and blinks furiously as the bright lights of the hallway hit her full force. It takes a few seconds for her eyes so adjust and objects to return to focus. Whoever had the brilliant idea to swap over to more efficient lighting is going to get their ass kicked when she gets her hands on them.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

The guy standing in front of her smiles nervously, shifting from one foot to the next. “It’s Robert? From Verne. You were there a couple weeks ago to help with the poisoning?”

_Your heart is pounding, little girl, are you scared? Scared they’ll know you’re nothing but a waste of breath like you always feared?_

_You don’t belong anywhere._

“Yes, colchicine poisoning,” Wendy says, reluctant to admit that’s the only thing she remembers from the mission. They’d made it to the town, Verne, a few hours after the wyvern extermination, and while Team Natsu spent the night recuperating, Wendy worked until daybreak in order to heal the ill villagers and identify the toxin. Anything other than that is a blur.

“Yes! Thank you for that, by the way, but...we still haven’t caught the perpetrator,” Robert says.

“That’s unfortunate. I’m not sure what I can do other than recommend you check the water supply and whoever had access to it.”

“Well, we were wondering if we could hire _you_.”

Wendy’s fingers go so cold she can no longer feel the files in her hand. The hallway’s getting too narrow, the lights too bright. 

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” she says, her voice surprisingly steady, “I’m really busy at the hospital-”

“But you’re a mage, aren’t you? We can hire you through the Guild? It’s just, the last time-”

His babbles are drowned out by the high-pitched ringing in her ears that throws her off-balance. _You’re a mage, aren’t you_ ? It’s so accusatory her vision goes red. Is he implying he thinks she’s a hack job of a mage if she doesn’t take this mission? Or, worse, that she _can’t_ take this mission because it’s out of her purview? 

“I am a mage, yes, but I have duties to the hospital,” she grits out. Robert flinches, looking as helpless as she feels. A year ago that look would’ve played her heartstrings like a twelve-piece string orchestra and had her leading him out the door to Verne immediately. Now all it does is make her want to escape through the walls.

“Please. I...we really need your help.”

“You need a mage’s help. I’m a doctor,” Wendy corrects tightly. Her shoulders drop at his crestfallen expression. Poison makes it a medical case which makes it her problem, but she _can’t_ go out there again. The field is too dangerous and full of uncontrollable variables, the kind she’s not fond of or even capable of handling. In the hospital she knows what to do, she’s proven it time and time again and _this_ is where she thrives. Out there is too much all at once. 

She pulls out her prescription pad and scribbles in her neatest writing, hoping it’s legible enough for him to read as she tears it off and hands it over. “If you go to Fairy Tail and ask for any of these names, they’ll be able to help. They have experience with this sort of thing. My recommendation is Gajeel and Levy, but Laxus and the Raijinshuu are also the best. They...they’ll help. Tell them I sent you.”

“Thank you! I-”

“Have a nice day,” she cuts him off curtly, heading down the hall in the opposite direction. She barely has time to turn the corner before she’s falling against the wall, trembling. 

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

* * *

The procedure is fairly routine as far as ER visits go: extract the shards of glass embedded in the patient’s foot, and then clean, suture, and bandage before discharging. Wendy’s only job is to stand back and oversee the medical student doing the stitches. It’s so simple even a competent ten-year-old can do it.

Unfortunately, medical students are little more than bumbling eight-year-olds, and Wendy is rapidly losing her patience with how long it’s taking this one to do a _simple extraction._

The patient’s heart rate monitor beeps, grating her frayed nerves. She clenches and relaxes her jaw rapidly, hoping to ease the pressure building behind her temples. It beeps again, somehow louder than last time, and she snaps. “Can somebody go turn that off?”

One of the medical students observing blinks. “T-the vitals monitor? We can’t disconnect that.”

Wendy walks over and yanks the plug out, exhaling sharply when it finally goes _quiet_. The pounding is still there, but it’s less explosive. “He’s got glass in his foot, he doesn’t need this.”

“It’s hospital policy,” the student protests, flinching when she pins him with a glare. 

“Something you’ll learn quickly is that policy often has little bearing on practice. How many more shards left?”

“A few! There’s this one.” The student drops the shard in the silver pan with a tinny ‘plink’ that sets her teeth on edge. “And a few more…”

There are another two standing nearby taking notes, though on _what_ for the life of her she can’t figure out. Do they all need to be in here _staring_ and _mumbling_ and _breathing_? She swears she can feel every one of their stuffy little breaths against her skin like nails that sharpen with every passing minute. 

Five minutes. Five minutes and this’ll be over and she can go to the lounge and stuff her head under pillows to drown out the noise of the world.

Another shard drops, and it feels like her blood is burning her bones. “ _Do that quietly_.”

He’s so startled he drops his tweezers. “The extraction-?”

Wendy’s done with this. It needs to be _fucking silent_ , god, how can’t he see that? Her hand swats his out of the way, curling around the foot and creating a little vacuum with the air that extracts the remaining glass while pushing in enough healing magic to completely close the wounds, not a single scar in sight. 

“There,” she says, too loud for her own ears to handle. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

* * *

Wendy is on-call overnight on Mondays. The pager doesn’t wake her up anymore because she doesn’t go to sleep. Stiles has a cup of coffee ready for her when she inevitably finds herself in the morgue to practice procedures she can do in her sleep. 

Nobody asks if their shift can be covered on Tuesday. Wendy never leaves the hospital anymore so they can leave whenever. Some of the medical students have started joking she’s got enough magic in her to handle a whole ER by herself. The praise should have her cheeks flushing, but it feels hollow. Her hair is blue, she’s five foot even, and she can heal the entire ER without blinking. What else is new? 

Grand rounds on Wednesday are no longer a test. She’s passed everything Wheeler can throw her way. He stays friendly with her in a professionally detached sort of way, far too busy with his impending Deanship to pay much attention to her anymore. It’s for the best. She’s got him beat in every way imaginable. 

Thursdays they tell her to take a break. Muscle memory carries her to the apartment so she can shower and throw out groceries she buys and forgets to use (she should cry because this means _they’ve_ stopped swinging by, but all she does is double bag the rotting fruit and set out apple cider vinegar for the fruit flies now that Natsu won’t be around to burn them for her). 

Fridays are for surgeries. Fridays are the only normal day. She burns through her reserves and tries to sleep afterwards - but only in spurts, because any longer and she wakes up drowning in air.

They’ve given her Wheeler’s old office, and she spends the whole weekend holed up in there, reading, filing, staring at a wall listlessly, trying to muster up any sort of feeling she can when she reads her thank-you notes. 

Wendy’s name is up there at number one. They’ve stopped counting her hours.

(There is nothing.

Nothing.)

* * *

“Who said the Q word?” Alvarado snarls. It’s four in the morning so Wendy can’t find the vocal cords to agree with him. 

“Swear to _fuck_ if it was one of those gunners, I’m gonna ram my foot so far up their ass-”

“You say this every time,” Geneva says tiredly, throwing her hair up into a massive knot and securing it with every elastic on her wrist. “What do you do? Nothing.”

“You’re supposed to remind me to scare them,” Alvarado grumbles, shoving past them both to enter the eye of the storm.. 

It’s a familiar enough scene. Blood paints the walls, people are screaming and crying and it’s hard to tell which comes from the patients and the med students, monitoring equipment is going haywire. The ER is in shambles, and Wendy is so, so tired.

Wheeler’s a whirlwind of annoyance and calm as he flits from bed to bed, stopping at the first critical patient he finds and summoning his magic to heal. Ozone blankets the room so faintly only people with magic as finely attuned as hers is can feel it; she learned long ago to tune it out like insignificant background noise, but it slams into her, standing all her nerves on edge and _god_ the things she would do to make it go away, to make _all_ of this _go away._

“Wendy, pneumothorax!” Geneva shouts. 

She stumbles her way to the bed on autopilot. There’s no thought behind the act of healing the lung and the rest of the crush injuries. There’s no sight, either. She’s aware that her eyes are on a torso, aware that there’s blue light encasing it, but it’s like watching everything go down on screen. These aren’t her hands. This isn’t her magic, her body. 

But the _noise_ , fuck, the _noise._

Every blip of the vitals monitor is a vice around her heart, squeezing it, squeezing it, _squeezing_ it. Somebody drops a scalpel and she swears it falls right into her back, screeching against her spine. A laryngoscope snaps open and she wants to gag with the patient.

“Wendy! Tracheal collapse!”

Her knees are so weak, she needs to sit down, just for a second, just for a _second._

“Big bleed! Wendy!”

Why won’t they stop shouting? It’s so fucking _loud_ , shut up, shut _up._ The world is spinning, spinning, _spinning_ , fading in and out of focus and the only thing she can make sense of is how hard she’s fighting the urge to _run_.

“Wendy, over here!”

 _Shut up!_ She wants to scream but her throat tightens around a ball of spikes that only grows sharper with every choked gasp. _Why won’t it stop?_

They need her here. This is her home, where she thrives. This is safe, she knows what to do, this is _fine._

Wheeler grabs her by the upper arm hard enough to bruise. “ _Get your head back here or get out of my ER._ ”

Wendy runs.

She runs and runs and runs until she can’t breathe and falls to her knees when her legs give out with her lungs. The walls close in on her but she can’t move when her body is shaking so much it threatens to fall apart if she so much as lets a sob out. 

She needs to go back, this much is clear. Running away isn’t an option when she’s worked so hard to get here in the first place. They’re calling for her, they _need_ her. Natsu wouldn’t give up. Natsu would crawl his way in with his chin if he had to and keep fighting until there was nothing left of him but smoke in the air, and Wendy’s still _here_ . Wendy’s still here with full magical reserves and knowledge and expertise but she _can’t_ , she _can’t_. There’s too much noise, too much blood, _too much, too much, too much_.

But isn’t this what she wanted? What she asked for? They love her, they respect her, they look up to her, _isn’t that enough_ ? Glory isn’t grand, it doesn’t ensure grace at all times, but she’s been doing so _good,_ how is it going so _wrong_ all of a sudden? 

_Are you ready to admit it? That you weren’t cut out for any of this? Not good as a mage, not good as a healer._

_But I’m good at this, I_ am _, I’ve worked the most, I’ve worked so_ much.

_After this? They know you’re a hack-job. They know you’re a hack-job at Fairy Tail and they know you’re a hack-job here. You’re done._

_No I’m not._

_Natsu and Wheeler don’t break. You do._

_I’m not broken!_

_Aren’t you?_

“Wendy?” Laxus is a blur before her eyes that grows no clearer even as he crouches down in front of her, hovering a hand over her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Wendy Marvell breaks, and it’s not beautiful. She breaks like a thousand plates crashing to the floor at the same time, like the ground when an earthquake hits, like a building that’s stood too tall for too long. Every sleepless night on end, every second spent forcing herself to the brink to perfect one more skill, invent one more technique, just to make sure she’s the best, that she doesn’t slip into the crowd of nameless, faceless white coats that come and go every year, they rip from her in ugly sobs and it feels like her whole world is breaking apart because Wendy hasn’t cried in so long she forgot how sick it makes her feel. 

But Wendy Marvell is so very, very tired, and it’s all she can do to hold onto Laxus’s coat as she cries into his shoulder for the things she’s lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Whoops, anyway, the big ugly is over! It will get even uglier in the next chapter, but I can promise you Wendy exits this Mostly in teact. Mostly.
> 
> So, with that, please leave a review on your way out, even a keysmash will do.
> 
> -Eien


	3. the silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm very sorry I'm a week late! I had a couple reviews hoping for more Mest and Wendy brotp moments, so you know I had to go back and write them in. Plus an extra Cobra and Wendy brotp moment, because we all need a little bit of that in our lives.
> 
> I highly encourage you all to listen to 'Innocent' by Taylor Swift while reading this!
> 
> Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima, Innocent belongs to Taylor Swift, this fanfic belongs to me

_I guess you really did it this time_

_Left yourself in your warpath_

_Lost your balance on a tightrope_

_Lost your mind tryin' to get it back_

_Wasn't it easier in your lunchbox days?_

_Always a bigger bed to crawl into_

_Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything?_

_And everybody believed in you?_

_It's alright, just wait and see_

_Your string of lights is still bright to me_

_Oh, who you are is not where you've been_

_You're still an innocent_

_You're still an innocent_

_-Innocent, Taylor Swift_

* * *

The first few days are spent teetering between catatonia and breakdowns so intense it’s a wonder she doesn’t dehydrate herself. It’s hard to decide which she likes better: with the catatonia comes the bliss of not being able to _feel,_ something she relishes in for the brief moments she can, but the crying, as sick and terrible as she feels, is cathartic because in its wake comes the lightness, the calm. There’s nothing left of her, then, and nobody to see it.

Except there is.

Laxus stands an awkward, constant vigil during these days. He’s not good with emotions or comfort. There’s no hugging after that day in the hospital, but there is an ice-cold glass of water by her bed, and a plate of fruit every couple hours because she can’t stomach much else. 

His initial attempts at conversation go over about as well as expected. He asks a few questions, she bursts into tears, he backtracks in terror, and then he just stops talking. A part of her gets that he’s trying to help her and she wants the help - she _needs_ the help - but she _can’t_. All that will do is prove to the world that she was never capable of being self-sufficient in the first place. To them, this was inevitable. 

She refuses to let them win, so when Laxus opens his mouth to try and say something, she rolls over and drags the blanket up over her head, forcing her face to remain perfectly still even as tears well in her eyes again. 

_She can do this._

* * *

One week into her self-imposed exile, the blanket is ripped off her, and she yelps - the first sound she’s made all week.

“Get up. You need a shower,” Totomaru - fucking _Totomaru_ , from _Phantom Lord_ \- demands, crossing his arms over his chest. He jerks his head to the side, where Juvia hovers anxiously, saying, “She’ll help you get ready.”

“Leave me alone,” Wendy mumbles, so far gone she can’t bring it in her to care that she’s telling off _Totomaru_ of all people. 

His expression goes more severe if possible. “Think about how much Laxus has had to look after you for the past week and a half. Is it too much for you to go shower?”

Wendy flinches. Shit. A week and a half? She’s been lying down for a week and a half and Laxus has just _dealt_ with it without a word of complaint? As she sits up slowly, she realizes for the first time that this isn’t even _her_ apartment. This bed is way too big and the room has sleek decorations she can only dream of affording. One look at the photo of the Raijinshuu and a surly Lightning Dragon Slayer on the bedside table seals the deal. This is _Laxus’s_ house, _Laxus’s_ bed she’s been mooching off for a _fucking week and a half_.

For the first time since her initial break, Wendy feels something: _mortification_. Where has he been sleeping if he’s been sleeping at all? She hasn’t even had the sense to get up and offer to help look after the place, or to sleep on the sofa as a guest. 

He must see something on her face because Totomaru nods, clearly satisfied. “Exactly.”

“Oi, she’s not-” Laxus starts, clamming up when Totomaru holds up a hand. “We’ll be waiting in the living room.”

As he leads the taller male out the door, he mutters, almost too low for her ears, “I know, but right now I have to appeal to what will get her responsive.”

Juvia is mercifully silent and non-judgemental as she shows Wendy to the bathroom. She’s totally serene, adjusting the water to the perfect temperature and helping Wendy into the tub, drawing the curtains for privacy. 

The first burst of water against her skin shocks her awake, and the second into reality. It’s been over a _week_ since she last showered. Not the first time that’s happened, but this feels different from skipping daily showers to do extra rounds. Grosser. She washes her hair twice because the oil buildup keeps it from lathering properly the first time, and then conditions until her head feels sore. Then she steals some expensive looking soap and scrubs herself like she’s heading into surgery. It’s only when her skin is so uncomfortably red the water burns that she turns the tap off and waits for Juvia to hand her a towel.

“Juvia thought you would enjoy some new clothes! These should hopefully fit,” Juvia says kindly, pointing to the clothes laid out on the counter. There’s plain cotton underwear, a pair of soft-looking sweatpants, and a full-sleeved shirt with a little alien poking out of the collar. It’s a far-cry from her dresses and scrubs. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what she needs right now.

They follow the scent of coffee to the living room, where four cups await on a low table. Wendy studiously avoids eye contact with any of them as she takes a seat on the sofa and picks up a cup, taking a sip. It tastes just like Mira makes it.

“What would Wendy want for breakfast?” Juvia waits until she’s done half the cup to ask. 

“Fruits or eggs?” Totomaru says with a pointed look her way. 

“Fruits.”

Laxus brings both anyway and sets them before her with an apologetic half-smile, the kind patients’ family members shoot at her when the patient is acting up. 

Wendy eats the blueberries first because it’s brain food and her mind is so thick with fog she’ll need all the support she can get to clear it. She’s already stuffed by the time she moves on to the little apple cubes, her stomach seizing in protest with every bite. The last time she’d had a breakfast _this_ loaded in one go was the day she ate crepes at the Guild.

“Finish half that at least,” Totomaru instructs, spearing a strawberry into his mouth. Wendy notes that her bowl is devoid of strawberries - Laxus noticed after all.

“So, what is this, an intervention?” Wendy inquires, only slightly joking. She knows a set-up when she sees one. Totomaru snorts into his coffee, eyeing her with such amusement it lights up the barest sparks of annoyance in her. Who does he think he is? Some washed out ex-villain who’s going to teach her about the dangers of isolation from support networks? ‘Look at me, I’m a living example of what happens when you don’t have one of those. Don’t let this become your villain origin story.’

“Yeah, I’m not that kind of psychologist.”

Wendy blinks. “You’re a psychologist? Since when?”

“Well, you all decided to fuck off into a space-time pocket for seven years which meant we could finally get things done without an explosion leveling the town every five minutes, courtesy of Natsu,” Totomaru answers, dodging an elbow from Juvia. Wendy tilts her head, giving him a once over with this new information in mind. She’s only met a few psych’s in her time at the hospital and even then just in passing, but he doesn’t fit the mold. 

“He’s also a teacher at the elementary school,” Juvia says with a roll of her eyes. 

The odd gets odder. Ex-criminal turned model citizen, and Wendy can barely manage the model citizen part after abandoning her hospital. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in redemption - three-fourths of the room are people who have wronged Fairy Tail one way or another and have worked to polish their reputation until it glows, after all - but it’s hard to wrap her head around all of this. What’s she done _wrong_? What’s the common factor between their stories? Laxus left and so did Wendy, but a fat load of good that did for her. Juvia stuck close to Fairy Tail, something that only served to worsen her self-esteem, and Totomaru...well, what did he do? 

“You’re thinking. What’s on your mind?” Totomaru interrupts her train of thought. Wendy shakes her head, nibbling on a half slice of banana. 

“Nothing, just...things have changed.”

If he has any idea what she means by that, he gives no indication. Instead, Totomaru looks to Laxus and has a conversation with eye-contact alone. One raised brow, two eyerolls, and a twitch later, he turns to her, sighing heavily. “So, the way I see it is we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can talk to me or you can talk to him, but you’re talking to somebody. And I’m taking you off the hospital roster.”

“You can’t do that!” Wendy protests, nearly dropping the bowl in her haste to stand up. The world spins and she doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or the knowledge that the only thing keeping her oriented on this planet has been ripped from under her feet. All these months of _grinding_ to get to the top, to make herself _perfect_ in one thing and it’s just _gone_?

Her throat constricts so painfully it’s as if Totomaru’s got his fingers wrapped around it. _Please,_ she wants to say, _please, this is all I have_. He has to know what it’s like to find your glove-fit home after years and years of chipping away at yourself to try and click with pieces of a puzzle you were never designed for, has to understand that the hospital has shown her that she can heal those scarred over pieces when the very _nature_ of her magic dictates that she can never heal herself.

But all she does is choke out, "You _can't_."

"See, technically, I _can_." There's nothing kind or amused or even stern about his expression. His dark eyes burn like coal, paradoxically freezing her from the inside out. He waits until she falls back into her seat to speak again, clinical as a scalpel. "I'm employed by Precht Gaebolg but Magnolia contracts me as an independent psychologist for several reasons I'm certain you can guess at. Either way, I'm obligated to pull out and treat any physician I think is a danger to themselves or their patients until such a time they're not."

"But I'm not a danger to my patients," Wendy insists, knuckles bone-white over clenched fists. "I'm a good doctor."

The look on Totomaru's face is one she's seen mirrored in Wheeler's enough times for it to have her heart tighten before she even knows why: disappointment. But there's something heavier weighing down on his shoulders, the same kind of resignation that sometimes blankets Laxus the few times he's spoken to her, and it takes a long while before she realizes it's _pity_.

And then, simmering underneath, understanding.

Abruptly, she's _furious_. Vision-whitening, temple-pounding, blood-boiling furious, and she hopes _they_ can see it. What are they _pitying_ her for? Cracking under the pressure? Wendy didn't just _crack_ under the pressure; she _shattered_ , and every waking moment since has been spent dragging her palms over the sharp edges trying to feel where the new pieces of her begin. Do they think they understand her because they've hit low points before? They hit their low points at the _height_ of their glory, exploded in a brilliant supernova, been born anew as the kind of star Wendy whispers her wishes to in the dead of night. Wendy's _ascension_ involves scraped, bloody skin and clinging on to little nooks she clawed herself, and now she's fallen so far she can't remember where the grips are.

So, no, they _shouldn't_ pity her, they will _never_ understand her, and they can _never_ hope to try.

"Nobody said you weren't a good doctor," Laxus pipes up for the first time, "It's not your patients we're worried about."

Totomaru purses his lips. "I mean, _you're_ not. I am. _I_ have duties to follow."

"So do I. Mine are to her," Laxus says, the ocean of his eyes suddenly glacial. "If I was concerned about the patients I would've sent you to the hospital. I'm not."

"Dragon Slayers. I swear being _this_ myopic has to be a genetic fluke at this point," Totomaru mutters.

"He cares for her in the same way Juvia cares for Gajeel. Can you blame him?" Julia demurs. 

Wendy blinks at that, feeling like the Water Mage doused her with ice. The way _Juvia_ cares for _Gajeel_? Years and years of familiarity from Phantom Lord means they argue a _lot_ , but nine times out of ten it's just for the sake of _arguing_ than anything else. Most of the time, though, Gajeel is the only person who can navigate Juvia's deepest bouts with depression, and Juvia's often infinitely more adept than Levy at handling Gajeel's mercurial moods. 

They watch over each other the same way Mira keeps tabs on her siblings: trusting them to handle themselves, but ready to burn the world if needed.

_Laxus_ cares about _her_ like that? Like a brother would?

Wendy glances at him out of the corner of her eye, puzzled. _Why?_

"We're off-topic. You talking to me or him? If you talk to him, know he'll tell me everything, but I figure you might have an easier time opening up to someone you know."

No he doesn't. Totomaru may have an iron-strong grip over his reactions to the point of which Wendy doesn't detect the _slightest_ hint of a lie - not even an extra beat of his heart when he speaks - but she knows bullshit when she sees it. 

"I'll talk to you," she replies. If Laxus is offended, he doesn't show it.

Easier to talk to someone she doesn't care about enough to be hurt by their opinions. He probably gets it.

"Living arrangements?"

"My apartment," she says quickly, ashamed at how long she's spent wallowing in someone's house without even noticing it. The sooner she gets back to her place the sooner she can resume crying into her pillow, this time with the knowledge that it's her pillow to ruin.

"I'll leave the rest of your scheduling up to you, but I expect you to meet up with some friends you've neglected this past year and socialize with them," Totomaru says, stretching out languidly, much to Juvia's annoyance. Although he looks far more affable now, knocking his knee against his companion's, there's something swimming in the depths of his gaze that has her on edge. "I suggest you start with Mest."

Laxus swaps her fruit bowl for his coffee, and Wendy takes small, slow sips, waiting for the tingling in her fingers to give way so she can feel the warmth of the cup. 

* * *

Entering the apartment is like walking into a parallel dimension where it looks...lived in. Maybe not like a home, but certainly nowhere near the abandoned mess in her mind's eye. The kitchen is stocked with nonperishables, none she remembers purchasing, and a tad too healthy to have come from Team Natsu. That plus the fact that her sheets have been changed into a set she’s never owned tells her all she needs to know: The Raijinshuu were here. Laxus is far too utilitarian to have chosen the little lightning bolt design himself. 

Wendy falls back on her bed, taking in the scent of laundry detergent and the distinct floral tones she knows are Evergreen. She hasn’t slept in this bed in _months_ , has it always been so big? She stretches out hesitantly, waiting for the sharp armrest of the sofa to force her knees up to her chest, for the backrest to keep her confined to a half-foot width. It never comes, and Wendy doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

She doesn’t know how to feel about _any_ of this.

Right now she should be preparing for the night shift, running a final round, catching up on paperwork, down in the morgue with Stiles, _doing_ something. Her body is in overdrive no matter how many deep breaths she takes to try and calm herself down. The tree tapping her window is every bit as adrenaline-inducing as the loud beeps of her pager, the same one she keeps expecting to go off. 

But it’s just a tree. It’s just a tree, just like this is just a night, and she’s just Wendy.

Just Wendy. 

Scowling, she rolls out of bed and changes into an oversized cotton nightgown. It’s too hot in here. Her own skin feels too heavy to be wearing. Water, she needs water. And maybe a snack. She hasn’t eaten since the fruit bowl at Laxus’s and that was...her eyes flick to the clock mounted on the wall beside the fridge. Great, that’s dead, too. 

Three glasses of ice cold water and a couple carrots later, Wendy feels just as uncomfortable as before. There’s enough energy thrumming in her veins to power Laxus a few times over. She slams her glass into the sink with a frown. Laxus. What’s his endgame? She can count on one hand the amount of meaningful conversations they’ve had since meeting and he’s somehow turned into her most ardent supporter. Not Team Natsu, who she shares her will with, not Gajeel, who watches her from the shadows, and not even poor Mest, who she can hardly blame since he’s got two lifetimes worth of problems to contend with, but _Laxus_ , who she didn’t think even knew her name until recently.

Does he think he can save her from herself? She doesn’t need _saving_ , _she_ does the saving. It’s the only thing she’s good at and he thinks he can take it away from her? How is that _fair_ when every adrenaline junkie in the Guild is allowed to go dance with death and come back for more? Nobody thinks twice about _that_. It’s actively encouraged. Why can’t they be happy for her when she does the same thing they do but in a different way?

“I’m crying…” she murmurs to herself, wiping tears off her face. “Why am I…”

_Sad. You’re sad._

_No I’m not. My chest doesn’t hurt._

_Sometimes you’re sad and you don’t feel anything. It just means you’ve been hurting for too long._

A walk. She needs to go on a walk. It’s too quiet to be alone with her thoughts.

Magnolia is at its most serene when the world is dead to it. There’s enough light pollution that she can’t make out the stars, but the moon hangs sure and steady above, keeping company with all those who need it. Cool air ruffles her hair, wicking away at the oppressive heat building under her skin and filling her lungs with crisp comfort. This is home, the steady trickle of water in the canal, the chirping of crickets, the heaviness of her heart. 

This is home, and Wendy doesn’t recognize it anymore.

“Wendy?”

Mavis, this is getting ridiculous.

“Laxus,” she greets, hoping her eyes aren’t as red as they feel. “What’re you doing out?”

He holds up a case of beer. “Last minute run. You?”

Wendy opens her mouth but it’s like the gravity of her thoughts keeps her tongue frozen in place. Her back is so tense she can barely manage a small shrug. If she cries here, if she cries in front of _him -_ she’s done it enough. No more. No more. Slayers don’t cry, she repeats to herself, doctors don’t cry.

What the hell does that make her?

Laxus sighs, scratching the back of his head, looking up at nonexistent stars for guidance. “You ever had onion rings?”

“...I grew up in the woods, but I know what onion rings are, Laxus.”

There’s an amused glint in his eye as he clarifies, “You ever had _Tollen’s_ onion rings?”

She's never had Tollen's and after one bite of the onion rings Laxus buys for the both of them, Wendy realizes she's also never lived life up until this moment. 

"How do you always find these weird places with the best food?" Wendy wonders, swiping another onion ring. Hyde Park is off-limits to visitors after 11 PM, but, according to Laxus, since they were visitors starting at 10:55 it doesn't count. Wendy doesn't know enough legalese to argue otherwise so she shuts up and follows him to the nearest bench armed with the knowledge that, for once, it's not her problem.

“You spend as much time travelling as I do and you find what’s good and not.” Laxus shrugs.

Wendy nibbles at the bread coating while trying to find her words. “That must’ve been fun, though.”

“The food? Yeah, but there’s always the risk you get food poisoning-”

“I meant the travelling. It just...it must’ve been nice to leave for a while.”

Laxus is silent for a moment, and Wendy fears she might have overstepped some invisible boundary before he speaks. “Being exiled was the best thing to have ever happened to me. I wouldn’t be me if I’d been allowed to stay after what I did.”

“Do you think my leaving was any different?” Wendy asks so quietly it feels like she’s breathing her deepest secret to life.

“Sometimes I think we’re the same person,” Laxus murmurs, laying his hand on the crown of her head and squeezing gently. “Other times I think somebody should’ve kept a closer eye on you. You’d think they’d have learned after me. You’d think I would’ve seen it coming.”

_Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…_

She’s crying. She can’t help the tears burning troughs down her cheeks, but she _can_ bite her lips until they bleed to trap the ugly gasping noises in her mouth. It hurts. It hurts so much she can’t tell where it starts and ends and _fuck_ how can she want to run away and sob into his shoulder all at once?

Why does he _get it_? 

“I’m sorry I didn’t try to help you sooner,” Laxus says wearily, drawing her into his side, shielding her from her own guilt. “I thought it might be different this time.”

“B-but you did-didn’t do a-anything,” Wendy hiccoughs, taking in short breaths that feel like jagged rocks filling her lungs. 

“Yeah. I know.”

“It’s n-not your f-fault.”

“Not yours either, kid. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re only fourteen. I was twenty-three.”

And fuck if that doesn’t feel like an Breakdown Fist to the gut. Wendy’s only fourteen - _fourteen fucking years old_ \- what the hell is she supposed to say to _that_? He endured ten more years than she could’ve managed. 

To have lived with the kind black hole in her heart right now, shredding at her from the inside and leaving whatever remains cold and heavy, for twenty-three years...Wendy hugs him with a strength foreign to her and sniffles.

Nobody noticed.

Nobody.

* * *

Therapy with Totomaru is nothing like her brief exposure to the psych ward at Magnolia, where the staff are either wide-eyed and compassionate to the point of tears, or jaded and colder than the snowy mountain region she hailed from. He neither holds her hand and offers her tissues and pre-written sympathy, nor does he slap a diagnosis on her and call it a day.

He sort of just...talks. About how much he hates Natsu, his opinions on the new city budget, how bad Juvia is at cooking, why marking is actually the worst part of teaching, and then sometimes, the hospital.

Wendy zones out a lot during his little tangents, but she’s all ears when he brings up the hospital.

“There’s been some trouble deciding on who the new Dean will be-”

Wheeler was on the short list last she checked. Did Stella change her mind? A part of her is viciously gleeful at the thought of him losing out on the position that drove all _this_ into fruition. Wheeler deserves no less than to have his whole world ripped out from under him just like hers has. She hopes he’s just as numb as she is.

(She doesn’t.)

“-anaesthesia seems to be having some problems-”

Geneva. Geneva’s anaesthesia. Fuck, she hasn’t thought about Geneva and Alvarado at all since she left. She wonders how long it’ll take for them to follow in Team Natsu’s steps and stop trying to communicate with her when she’s gone for too long. It took the Guild under a year; knowing those two the way she does, she’ll give it half that.

It’s all so impermanent. At what point do people decide to give up on people? Do they have to know each other for a long time? The Guild knew Laxus his whole life, maybe that’s why they held onto him so tightly no matter what he did, coming and going like the summer breeze. 

_“I thought it might be different this time.”_

What kind of family is it if they refused to notice one of their own from _birth_ screaming for help in any way he could before the shadows forced themselves down his throat and silenced him until it was too late? Yes it’s an awkward conversation to have, and oftentimes asking someone if they need help is just as downright uncomfortable as being the person _asking_ for help, but for a Guild that preaches unity and family, they sure as _shit_ have done a terrible job of acting like it.

“You’re thinking again,” Totomaru points out, bouncing his ankle where it’s balanced on the opposite knee. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Wendy lies. 

“I’m no prodigy like you, but I’m also not an idiot, kid. It’s been two sessions, I think I’ve been generous enough in letting you get adjusted.”

“That sounds unprofessional,” she grumbles.

He rolls his eyes. “ _Ex-criminal_. Seriously, I’m extending you the favour of professional courtesy by cutting out the pep-talks. I can _see_ your brain overheating. Unless you want to wind up like your idiot teammate…”

“Why did they not notice?” Wendy blurts, the walls she’s spent over a year building up brick by brick coming crashing down with that one sentence alone. “That Laxus was going the way he did? I...they’d known him for so long, how is it that they…”

Totomaru sighs, and suddenly there’s a different man sitting in his place, one who is all too familiar with how people come and go like the tides, how fickle their promises are - but that, like the tides, there is consistency, predictability; he’s sick of it. 

“People see what they want to see. They see a child turn into a soldier overnight and say nothing because they value that strength, and that sets precedent - dangerous precedent, and one I’ve always hated Fairy Tail for establishing. Laxus is an extreme, but you see it everywhere. Your team, for starters. You.”

“But they didn’t…” _wind up like me_ “They came out stronger. And everybody waited and welcomed them back as if nothing happened in the first place. Were they just waiting for everything to tide over? Laxus...Laxus mentioned he wishes he’d acted when they didn’t.”

“When Phantom Lord first disbanded and we all went our separate ways, I kept in touch with the other members as much as I could. Especially the Element Four. _Especially_ Juvia,” Totomaru begins slowly, steepling his fingers, not a lick of shame on his face over that confession. The air in the room is uncomfortably thin, like she’s up at altitude and didn’t acclimate, her blood struggling to cope. 

“At first all it was was trying to help her adjust. Then it was trying to convince her to stop stalking _Gray_.” His mouth twists over his name, like it’s poison. “Then I tried to convince her that joining Fairy Tail was a bad idea. And then Tenrou happened and-” he pauses to clear his throat, and she averts her eyes to give him the privacy he needs, “I mourned for a bit, got back into schooling, work...but I cleaned her house every week for seven years until she returned.”

This is the beauty of fire-mages: when they look at you, you can see the burning hearts of stars in their eyes, and the iron forged within them. “I love Juvia. She’s my family. I would never treat her the way Fairy Tail has treated you and Laxus and even Natsu.”

For once, Wendy is stunned silent. Totomaru didn’t give up on Juvia for seven _years_ and he didn’t even know if she was alive or not - all he had was hope and a half-promise. Her stomach roils uncomfortably when it hits her that her team only gave her a year and she was down the street.

“I still feel like...I could’ve kept in touch more. There’s only so much they could’ve done if I left them for the hospital without a second word.”

“Of course you could have. Why didn’t you?”

Deja vu runs through her like a blade. Her fingers tremble, mouth runs dry, her heart is going to explode right out of her chest. Pimping. It feels like Wheeler’s pimping her and she doesn’t know the answer and if she doesn’t know the answer he’ll be disappointed and kick her out and she’ll be of no use to _anyone_.

But it’s not Wheeler and his cool eyes ready to freeze and shatter her if she fails. It’s Totomaru with no expectations and the softest look on his face, happy that she’s speaking at all. He won’t care. He won’t care what she says _because_ he cares.

So Wendy says, fragile as a wish, “I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t do it by myself, like they did.”

Totomaru doesn’t offer her a hand to hold, tissues, or pre-written sympathy; he smiles an eye-crinkling smile and for the first time in weeks, Wendy... _feels_.

* * *

She heeds Totomaru’s advice and decides to visit Mest the next day. Laxus provides her with an address before she even thinks to ask for it, and _that_ throws a kink in her plans so hard it could put proline to shame. 

He lives right next door to Lucy.

_Shit._

So maybe she doesn’t visit the next day. So maybe she visits three days later when Laxus finally catches on to her skittishness and deposits her on Mest’s doorstep himself.

“I will be in there.” He points to Lucy’s door. “Having tea. You know I can hear you even if you talk at normal volume, so when you’re ready to go…”

“I ask Mest?”

Laxus somehow manages to look amused and unamused all at once, and then mostly unamused when Mest opens his door and says, “Ask Mest what? Oh, shit, Wendy! You’re here!”

“Mest doesn’t know where I live.”

“Mest absolutely knows where you live and your bedroom faces west,” he says cheerfully.

Laxus blinks. “Okay, I’m going to go now. Wendy, Stalker.”

“Idiot,” Meat says in turn, shooing her into his apartment, which is about as sparsely decorated as expected. There are an assortment of knick-knacks dotting the place, and she spots a glass full of dandelions from the canal wilting away on the coffee table.

“Do you still eat random flowers?”

“Hey, dandelions are perfectly edible, thank you very much,” he teases, “according to Totomaru, dandelion tea is a hell of a lot healthier than tequila and my liver is inclined to agree.”

Wendy really doesn’t know _how_ to even begin responding to that. She freezes up where she stands, hoping he’s too busy getting them drinks to notice her imploding slowly. She can run. Laxus probably hears her heart racing across the hall, he can come get her if she whispers loud enough.

But she owes this to Mest. No matter how uncomfortable she feels. She owes him this at least.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Wendy says loudly, so quickly the words blend together. Suddenly much calmer, she continues, “I’ve been a bad best friend.”

“You were in a space-time rift when I was addicted, you couldn’t have done anything even if you wanted to,” Mest responds, exiting his little kitchenette with two mugs of tea in hand. He hands her the one covered in smiley faces and then steers her towards the scorched three-seater.

“Don’t mind it, I got into a fight with Natsu the other day and forgot to buy new furniture.”

“Why’d you get into a fight with Natsu?”

“You, mostly,” Mest admits shamelessly. “Hey, don’t drop the tea!”

She can’t help it - she’s so shocked she can barely tell her fingers are wrapped around the handle anymore. “What do you mean _me_?”

“Drink your tea first.”

Obediently, she takes a few sips. When he’s satisfied with how much she’s had, he drinks his own and starts. “When Laxus found you in the hospital and brought you back to his place, he was _freaking out_. Er, don’t tell him I told you that. Wait, he can hear me, can’t he? Shit, okay, Laxus if you can hear me-”

“ _Mest._ ”

“Oh, right. Where was I? Freaking out, right, so after the first couple hours of you sort of...I mean, is catatonic the right word? I wonder…”

“Mest, please.” He is so obviously trying to avoid answering the question that if he hedges one more time she’s going to...to clog his sink with bacon bits.

“Okay, you were totally out of it and Laxus came and told me _everything_. He’s been worried about you since that doctor dude hired you back then, and then he told me how the Guild kept refusing to intervene. You’d think they’d know better after what happened to him and I, but no, let another kid take the brunt of adults’ agendas...ugh, anyway, so then he tells me that Team Natsu pretty much left you high and dry, right? And he’s across the hall and I can hear him complaining about how you’re never around anymore and I Direct Lined him into my apartment and the rest is history.”

A year of inactivity and her tear ducts choose _now_ of all times to go into overdrive. At least she’s getting better at associating the burning and blurry vision with an imminent breakdown so she can blink it away and force the lump in her throat back down.

“You beat him up because he _left_?”

“Here’s the thing, Wendy. Laxus and I may have had the Guild growing up, but we didn’t have a team. So yeah, when we went off the fucking rails doing what we were and nobody was immediately in our corner trying to get us help, I can get that. Everybody else was a kid, too, Makarov should’ve known better. But you? You had a team and _everybody else_ is an adult now, too. They should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve seen it coming.”

_“Other times I think somebody should’ve kept a closer eye on you. You’d think they’d have learned after me. You’d think I would’ve seen it coming.”_

“Laxus said the same thing,” Wendy recalls. This is the second time now. First Totomaru, then Mest...just what do they _mean_ by this? Why does it all circle back to the enigmatic Lightning Slayer?

“I can’t speak for him-”

“Totomaru said that, too.”

“Can these assholes stop stealing the thunder? Fucking hell…” Mest knocks back the rest of his tea, sighs loudly, and then moves until he’s facing her. A year has aged him for better and for worse - there’s no baby fat still stubbornly clinging to his cheeks, which means when his jaw sets, she can see a muscle bouncing there angrily. 

Her partner from Tenrou isn’t anywhere on those glass-cut features, but it feels like they never really left the trials, because he’s still there on her six.

Mest tells her everything. Makarov hiring him as a double agent at fourteen, the memory wipes that are the reason he has such a hard time focusing on a train of thought all these years later, the drinking, Makarov’s terrible excuses, Laxus dragging him to Totomaru for therapy. He tells her he regrets it all because he can’t remember his mom’s name but he remembers the colour of her skin when he found her dead body, and he rambles when he forgets things, which is often, and waits for people to interrupt him and fill in the gaps because he’ll take looking like a goddamn airhead but he can’t let them know that he’s barely reached twenty-five and losing it so early. 

When he’s done, Wendy is crying. She’s crying because she hates the people she calls family for doing this to those she loves the most, crying because she never noticed it before, never tried to help, crying because it’s so fucking _unfair_ it makes ever nerve ending burn with the agony of knowing she can do _nothing_ to fix it all. 

“I hate this,” she cries, curling around him like she can protect him from the world. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate them.”

“Some days I do, too,” Mest confesses. “But then I remember you’re there and that Laxus is there and he’s going to be Master soon and make sure this never happens again. I might not be all there in the head, but I have enough left in me to tell you there is hope.”

“I don’t know if I can help, but I’m going to try,” Wendy asserts, drawing back and rubbing her face dry. Marching to the Guild and shaking Makarov until his blood boils the way hers is is out of the question, but Wendy knows all too well how efficient fury is as a fuel source. Fury got her to number one and fury was her downfall, but not this time. Fury will learn to listen to her the way the wind does.

“What do you mean?”

“Your memory. Laxus is going to fix the Guild and you’ve been watching out for me and I need to do something, too.”

“Mavis, Wendy,” Mest groans, smacking the back of her head lightly. “Have you been listening to _anything_ we’ve been trying to tell you? You don’t _need_ to do anything! We can handle it! Or, wait, no, that’s….ugh, wait give me a second…” he runs a hand over his face roughly, staring out the window. Just as she thinks he’s completely conked out, he snaps his fingers. “Right! Here’s the thing. Nobody expects you to burn yourself out to help others. Wanting to help people is what got you here in the first place, but right now the only person you need to be helping is you. Laxus and I have had years to come to terms with it. You’ve only just started healing up and we both know what it’s like when we hit that point. Throwing yourself fully into one venture got you here in the first place, launching yourself into another one isn’t going to do you any better. Let us figure it out for now. When you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you.”

For the longest time, Wendy has only known the kind of pressure that slams down on her head and she has learned to accept it as a permanent fixture in her life, like the knots in her shoulders. Most days it’s a constant weight that takes more than half her attention to deal with, and others require every ounce of magic in her to keep her knees from buckling under it. She’s tried everything from ignoring it to trying to take up as much space as she can so it stops squeezing the life out of her, but nothing works. 

Mest ruffles her hair, and it’s like there’s a shift. The pressure isn’t threatening to crush her; it’s under her feet, her heart, her soul, leaving her so very dizzyingly free to look up and see the world for the first time. 

Wendy feels like she can _fly._

“Thank you,” she whispers, “Thank you _both_.”

(“You know, I learned something very interesting when I was at the hospital today,” Totomaru says at their session a few days later. “Wheeler’s been admitted for care.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Apparently - and I say apparently because I had no prior knowledge of this and it’s all eyewitness - _somebody_ in Council robes appeared out of thin air and beat the fucking lights out of him in the middle of the ER.”

“Oh wow. Did they catch the guy?”

“No, for some reason everybody’s memory is exceptionally...fuzzy at the moment.”

“That’s weird.”

“Mhm. How’s Mest?”

“Totally fine. Went on a mission and broke a knuckle, but I healed him.”

“Excellent.”)

* * *

Wendy all but moves in with Laxus after that night at the park. It’s not exactly a subtle move, one shirt and smile at a time, because he hauled her back to his place after she cried herself to sleep and she woke up the next day to a flyer for apartment listings tacked to her suitcases piled in his bedroom.

(He refuses to live anywhere near the hospital and she avoids the Guild like the plague, so they’re sort of at a standstill where he sleeps on the pullout sofa and she learns that Laxus does _not_ fuck around with his thread-counts.)

As with every arrangement, for every upside there is a downside. She’s not so lonely anymore, but the problem is just that: she’s not _alone_. It’s hard enough hiding her mental breakdowns from people with normal hearing, but a Dragon Slayer? She so much as sniffles and he’s got the door beat down, armed with tea she didn’t even hear him making. 

Totomaru has her working on the whole ‘asking for help’ thing, and he makes her start small: ask somebody for help making tea. Simple enough, but as she turns to Mest one day and opens her mouth to ask him to get her some ginger, she freezes. Wendy goes about the motions of measuring out black peppercorns and cloves and it’s like her body has been taken over by somebody else entirely. She can mouth the words ‘get me the ginger’, can feel them waiting on her tongue, but she _can’t_. She _can’t_ breathe it into existence. He won’t think less of her - it’s _Mest_ for crying out loud - but what if he says something to someone? Who then thinks she needs help doing _everything_?

It’s so _irrational,_ even to her ears, but she finds herself slicing up the ginger anyway.

Laxus is exceptionally patient with her when it comes to this, much to her silent relief. She doesn’t dare ask for help when she’s practicing her offensive magic in the backyard, but she makes it a point to focus on the one thing she’s _really bad at_ so he can see it and give her pointers. It’s definitely probably not the best thing to be doing when she should be the one doing that _actively_ (and Totomaru has given her a whole _list_ of alternate terms for ‘help me’ which she recites to herself before bed every night), but she likes to think that she’s made strides. There’s no way that she would’ve practiced magic in front of anyone let alone _Laxus Dreyar_ for fear of being outed as a fraud of a Slayer.

Her hospital routine is very quickly replaced by a new one: a recovery routine that is so painfully, obviously coordinated by Totomaru, Mest, and Laxus. 

Wendy goes to therapy on Mondays. They have an understanding where Totomaru rambles about nothing for half the time in exchange for one secret from her. It doesn’t have to be a particularly bad secret (the time she tells him her first ever drink was at thirteen when she mistook Cana’s bottle of vodka for a bottle of water and guzzled half of it in one go is the _worst_ because _he_ tells _Mest_ when he comes to pick her up, and he never lets her live it down) but sometimes what she tells him (she can’t sleep her heart hurts she wishes she’s vanished with Cat Shelter) turns into two hours worth of tears and understanding she’s allowed to hurt and on those days Laxus takes her to Hyde Park for ice cream and idle chatter.

The only thing Laxus asks her to do on Tuesday is train with him. He teaches her how to do katas and yoga and she doesn’t think it’s helping until he tries to land a hit on her when they spar and she twists out of the way at an angle she didn’t think bodies could even turn. She likes Tuesdays a _lot_.

Tea with Mest on Wednesday no longer devolves into a day long sobfest. After the first few weeks of stewing in their mutual hatred for authority figures, they move onto more productive things, like designing a time machine to go back in time and stop a lot of things: Mest being used as a double agent, Wendy getting sucked into hospital work, Laxus receiving the Lacrima (“How about I just keep the Lacrima in this universe so I can help with the other things,” Laxus snorts when they tell him their plans, but there’s no denying the little smile he wears for a week afterward.)

Thursdays, Laxus tries to get her to come to the Guild. He’s not as adamant about it as Totomaru, who uses Juvia to try and guilt trip her into visiting, but he gives it a fair go. The thing is, she tries. When he heads out for the day with the promise of being back by evening, she stands in front of the door watching him leave and _begs_ herself to follow. It’ll be okay. He’ll be right there with her. She can do it. But she can’t, because the only ground that will not swallow her whole is the eight-hundred square feet she calls home. 

Fridays are for therapy, again. Totomaru is a lot nicer on Fridays. 

The weekends are spent solely with Laxus, who quickly realizes the best way to get her to leave the house is with the promise of food. He takes her to every little hole-in-the-wall Magnolia has to offer, and then swears on some bodegas in Oak Town will change her life so once they’re done with everything here they can go there. But ice cream will only ever be had at Hyde Park.

Quietly, like winter’s first frost on the grass, blink and you miss it, Wendy starts to heal.

(And then comes The Mission.)

* * *

“You can catch some sleep on the train, c’mon.”

“I still need to pack!”

“It’s only for a day, you won’t need to pack anything.” He gives her a quick once over. “You should probably change, though.”

Wendy glances down, squeaks, and runs straight for the bedroom. Goddamn her hearing because she can hear him trying to stifle his snickers even through the walls.

Figures the _one time_ she agrees to let Juvia stock her closet she picks out the onesie with dancing mochi on it.

Laxus graciously acts like nothing happened on their way to the train station, where they board the 7 AM to Hargeon, first class (Mest waves them off dramatically, wailing about how his “little girl is all grown up” before a very annoyed Juvia drags him away). Wendy’s never been in first class before, mostly because Team Natsu’s collective finances can either pay for economy tickets for all of them or first class for one, so she takes great pleasure in the little luxuries, like the magically enhanced memory foam seats.

“So, um, what’s the mission…?” Wendy asks once the train starts off. Across from her, he shifts in his seat, pressing his head against the window. 

“Basilisk’s paralyzed a person. Need to heal him and get rid of it,” he replies, pausing to clear his throat a few times.

It’s hard not to feel disappointed even though she anticipated this. “I heal, you get rid of it?”

“Thought we’d switch it up a bit. I deal with the healing, you deal with the snake.”

“You don’t know healing magic.”

“Have my ways.”

‘Ways’ can mean a lot of things when it involves Fairies, more often than not the _wrong_ way, and that goes doubly for Dragon Slayers, whom - sans herself and Rogue - seem to be born several cards short of a full deck. 

The train wobbles for a second as they hit a curve, causing Laxus to turn a shade of green that Wendy knows as ‘partied too hard on a Friday night and need my stomach pumped now’.

“Laxus?”

“Hm?”

“Are you motion sick? Because I can cast Troia-”

“Sleep, kid.”

Dragon Slayers are several cards short of a deck _entirely_ because they’re all too stubborn to go out and buy the difference. 

The remainder of the journey passes in relative peace. They hit a bump, Laxus looks ready to hurl, she offers Troia, he rejects, _ad infinitum_. Wendy takes great pleasure in eating a fruit bowl while Laxus struggles to finish the bottle of ginger ale she forces on him. When they reach Hargeon station, Laxus doesn’t need to shove past the other passengers to get off the train first because they take one look at his six-foot-four frame and press themselves against the walls to let him through. Wendy follows after, rubbing her forehead in exasperation. _Men._

Laxus ignores the lines of S.E. Plugs for rent and walks out onto the main road with little regard for the fact that Wendy is, in fact, barely five feet tall and needs to take three steps to match his one. A month or two ago she would’ve been fine because of speed-walking to codes on a daily basis, but she’s _way_ out of practice and her legs are _cramping bad_.

Wendy's mind doesn't really have an off switch. There’s always a thought or two floating around to keep her occupied, and sometimes if she’s really stressed, those thoughts multiply and build on top of one another until her head pounds and vision goes dark in the edges. She’s not quite at blackout yet, but her temples are throbbing something fierce.

Why the _hell_ did Laxus ask _her_ to go on a solo with him? It’s not exactly a trade secret that her offensive prowess, if on a scale of Romeo to Natsu, lies somewhere close to a wet matchstick, while Laxus is at the top of one of those rigged carnival games nobody can come close to beating. He can finish off a basilisk any day of the week, why waste time getting her to do it? 

This could all just be some elaborate way to test how good she’s gotten since he started personally training her. To see if she’s worthy of being invested in. She scowls, pinching herself ( _Totomaru’s gonna be pissed_ , she thinks absently); bad thoughts lead to bad actions. Laxus isn’t Wheeler. 

Shit, she should’ve just stayed in medicine.

“Don’t think medicine is much of a career when you got dragon in you, kid.”

Wendy squeaks, running into Laxus’s back, narrowly avoiding falling down. He helps steady her, nodding at the man lounging on the porch in front of them. “Cobra.”

Cobra grins, wiggling his fingers at her in greeting. His white coat is missing, leaving him in a skin-tight black turtleneck that tucks into tight-fit maroon pants. How he’s not sweating to death in the thirty-degree weather is beyond her, but he looks like he’s right at home in the midday heat wave.

“What can I say, I like a good hotbox,” Cobra chuckles, “And as for you, lightning-rod, you owe me.”

“Consider this double hours towards the community service you owe the country,” Laxus deadpans. “How’s the poisoning looking?”

“Boring as fuck. It’s textbook heavy metal poisoning-”

“From a _basilisk_?” Wendy says incredulously.

“Their poisons are variable depending on the environment they’re raised in,” Cobra explains, “Respiratory paralysis points to phosphorus poisoning, which is from a breed endemic to Sin. I want you to bring the snake to me.”

Wendy can’t focus on that right now. It’s dizzying how badly she wants to march right in and heal this person. Respiratory disorders are her _specialty_. Her birthright, isn’t that what she used to say? She can do _this_ , not fight a basilisk. 

“Your birthright is making storms, kid, mine is poisons,” Cobra says, waving a finger in the air. “Go make a tornado and get me the snake.”

Wendy narrows her eyes. “Does Lucy know what you’re up to?”

Cobra’s answering grin is vicious. “When was the last time you spoke to Lucy, little witch? She could be on my side for all you know.”

“Erik,” Laxus says, razor sharp, “Shut up before I _shut you up_.”

“Quit coddling her, Dreyar. She thinks she’s a big girl, might as well treat her like one. Isn’t that the whole point of this shitfest?”

Wendy cranes her neck to look at Laxus, taken aback. “What?”

“He’s being stupid,” Laxus snaps, nudging her towards the woods. “We’ll be back in an hour. Get the client fixed.”

“I can smell a storm,” Cobra jeers, “But I better see some lightning, too, little witch.”

_See some lightning?_ He’s under the assumption that she’s here to back Laxus up in the fight and not the other way around. She gnaws at the inside of her cheek, allowing Laxus to guide her through the woods. That makes no _sense_. Cobra can hear everything, he ought to know the plan.

“It’s just up ahead,” Laxus informs her, squeezing her shoulder gently. “I know you can do this, but if you need me to-”

“You can do it by yourself. Why ask me?”

Laxus sighs. “I...you can do this.”

That does a terrific job of not answering her question. 

They stop short of a little clearing. Wendy runs through her inventory of magic, cross-checking it with what she knows of basilisks. Variable toxins, apparently, and she’s fairly certain looking them directly in the eye is tantamount to death.

“Don’t look it in the eye. They’ll paralyze you,” Laxus advises, as if she spoke out loud. “You did.”

“Oh,” she mutters, “Well then. Um, I guess I’ll start?”

Laxus points to a tree right at the mouth of the clearing. “I’ll be right there. If...if you need anything.”

_I need you to kill the basilisk_ , is on the tip of her tongue. Steeling herself, she nods and steps into the clearing, senses in overdrive. 

Keep her eyes closed. No, on the ground. Don’t make eye contact, rely on everything else. Her skin is slick with humidity, the breaths of the forest as palpable as her own heartbeat. A bird, a squirrel, Laxus, and a snake. 

Left.

“Deus Corona!” she shouts, leaping out of the way just as a snake the size of an oak tree leaps out from the shade, snapping at where her feet were. Defensive magic thrums through her body like a coat of armour, but that’s only the second advantage gained here; the bright green of the spell shines right in the snake’s eyes, causing it to recoil with a hiss.

And that’s the opening she needs.

“Sky Dragon’s Roar!” she bellows, letting loose a roar that rips through the gap between them. The snake snaps left, avoiding the wind tunnel that crashes into a tree, splintering it. Wendy grits her teeth, pumping wind energy to her legs to propel her up and away from the basilisk’s dripping fangs. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ this is not good. It’s so much bigger and badder and _faster_ than she expected.

Her eyes flick to the side, where Laxus watches with a carefully blank face. Right. Can’t let him down.

“Leading Sky Arrow!” Razor sharp slices of wind coat her left leg as gravity propels her towards her target. The snake is fast, but Wendy’s trained with _Laxus fucking Dreyar._ Channeling a burst of wind to hit her square between her shoulderblades, she speeds up and rams her foot into its tail, hitting the dirt and rolling out of the way as it snarls in agony, rearing around to bite.

Her back throbs painfully, but so do her hip and shoulder from the fall, which delocalizes the pain enough that she can shove it into the back of her mind to deal with later. Clinically, she’s pretty sure she’s going to have a bone bruise. Practically, she doesn’t care because she doesn’t have time to - the basilisk whips its bloody tail at her, wrapping around her ankles and squeezing until she feels something give way under pressure.

Her talus. It broke her fucking _talus._ Okay, Wendy breathes, okay. One broken talus, she’ll live. Splint, ice, splint, ice. ER, what would she do in the ER?

_"Very good! Yes, you don't want to put in too much magic, or it doesn't set right. Just enough that the body can kick in and fix up the rest on its own. You use way too much magic, making it difficult to control and also heal. If you do it a lot slower and in smaller doses, you'll see that it's easier,"_

Fuck Wheeler, but also thank fucking God for Wheeler. 

“Leading Sky Arrow!” she shouts again, but this time, it’s her _hands_ encased in swirling wind; she slams her palms into the ground, ignoring the pain that lances up her forearms, and _pushes_ until she’s flying feet-first towards its face. Last minute, she channels the smallest, sharpest burst of magic into her feet, slicing the tail and slashing one eye shut.

It looks like Cobra. She giggles hysterically, glancing at her blond companion. He’s not laughing, doesn’t he get the joke? He looks angry. She’s not working fast enough.

Fine, she’ll show him fast.

One eye down means it’s got a blind spot on the left. Wendy flips back, choking when she lands on her foot wrong and it feels like Gajeel’s run his Iron Dragon’s Sword through her ankle and shredded it. Oh _fuck_ does it hurt, it hurts _badbadbad_ she can barely see through the white-hot pain.

The basilisk rams its head into her abdomen. She feels its oily slick skin against hers as it tears a chunk off her shirt, gags as it _burnsburnsburns_ in her fucking _lungs_ how the hell is it in her _lungs_? 

No time.

“Sky Dragon’s Crushing Fang!” she snarls, swiping down on the basilisk with both hands. Torrents of wind follow the path of her fingers, cutting into the skin and holy shit it does _barely anything_ but piss it off more.

Blasting off another Roar point blank, Wendy allows it to blow her back a few feet so she can catch her breath. Hopefully two close range attacks back-to-back did _something_ otherwise she’s going to _cry_. 

She’s going to cry anyway, because everything fucking hurts _everywhere_. She’s not quite at a ten, but she gets why some patients struggle to pick between seven and eight; it hurts like fucking _hell_ right now, but judging by the poison seeping off the basilisk as it shakes off the bloody remnants of her attacks, she’s about to hurt a lot worse.

Swallowing back her instinctive scream as it comes for her throat again - fuck, why is it moving _faster?_ \- Wendy shoots off a Sky Dragon’s Wave Wind, several small tornadoes whipping up and crashing at random around the basilisk. 

Like Wheeler said: small and controlled.

It doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t do _anything_. A half sob half laugh catches in her throat. Of course it doesn’t do anything. That’s her whole arsenal _plus_ Deus Corona. If it can do this while amped up on extra defensive magic, what’s going to happen when it wears off completely? It’s already starting to fade, otherwise she wouldn’t have felt the poison seep through her skin.

And fuck, is it getting harder to breathe.

Respiratory paralysis. The irony isn’t lost on her. She has to focus on the mechanics of breathing, coaching herself through the exaggerated motion - in, out, in, out. She’s so tired. So, so, so tired. Why can’t it end already, she’s so _tired_. She’s not fought in over a year, why this, why now?

Why won’t he step _in_? 

The basilisk zips forward like it’s Rogue in a shadow, jaws ready to snap around her throat.

Her eyes close. Fuck, she can’t _move_. Her body isn’t clammed up so much as it is perfectly relaxed, freezing her in place. The poison, no doubt.

_“But I better see some lightning, too, little witch.”_

_“Right! Here’s the thing. Nobody expects you to burn yourself out to help others. Wanting to help people is what got you here in the first place, but right now the only person you need to be helping is you.”_

_“I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t do it by myself, like they did.”_

_“I’ll be right there. If...if you need anything.”_

Oh.

Oh, it’s so obvious now, even to her hazy mind.

She hopes it works. She only has enough energy to do this once.

“Laxus, _help me_!” Wendy screeches.

The air gets so thick she chokes on it. For a second, there’s nothing but a distant hum in her ears. 

She hears the distant rumble before a bolt of lightning crashes down on the basilisk, just as its teeth scrapes her neck. Sparks skitter across her skin, standing her hair on end and clamming her muscles up. It feels like she’s been ripped out of her own body and then shoved back in, and all this from a _brush_ with the lightning.

Laxus drops down beside her, drawing her in with one arm and knocking the crispy snake away with the other. Little slivers of lightning jump off his skin, pinching but not painful, slowly grounding her.

“Took you long enough,” he says, rubbing the basilisk scratch with his thumb. “A second longer and I would’ve had to jump in and messed up the whole point of this.”

She should be pissed, but she’s tired. And a little (a lot) drugged. “The point was to get me to ask for help?”

“You refuse to do otherwise. We figured this would do it, and it did.”

“Why?”

“There’s no harm in asking for help, Wendy. Especially when your life is in danger. Nobody will think less of you for it; I certainly won’t,” Laxus says, deadly serious. “Our lives are meant to be saved, too. We’re worth that.”

Her lungs are full of sticky tar as she slurs, “Cobra’s gonna be pissed. We killed the snake.”

“He’ll live.”

“Gonna need your help.”

“Oh?”

“‘M poisoned. Cobra can help.”

Laxus hefts her up, and she can’t even marvel at how different the world looks from this high up in his arms because her vision is starting to go all blurry and mushy. 

“Twice in less than five minutes. I’m impressed.”

“Quick learner.”

“I can see that.”

* * *

Cobra turns out to be a dab hand at healing given the circumstances. He can’t heal the broken bones or the burns, but he makes quick work of removing the poison through a small nick near her ribs. It doesn’t hurt a bit, but that might have more to do with the painkillers he doped her up with than his technique.

She watches him splint her foot with a critical eye. “You’re doing good.”

Cobra raises a brow, rolling the last of the gauze around her foot and tucking it into place. “I _can_ hear you, you know. You’ll forgive me for not using that newer splint technique, I learned this one while enslaved and it’s served me pretty well.”

Wendy blushes, mortified, looking anywhere but him. 

A hand lands on her head heavily. For a second she thinks he’s going to ruffle it (what the hell, is this some weird Dragon Slaying thing Grandeeney forgot to tell her about?), but he uses it to push himself up, cracking his neck.

“You owe me a poison, little witch. You killed my snake.”

“My name is Wendy,” she corrects, “and Laxus killed your snake, not me.”

“Not what I heard.” He taps his temple, smirking a little. “You’re innovative, Sorceress. I’ll give you that.”

“Innovation doesn’t do much for practicality,” Wendy murmurs, thinking back to the way Laxus _decimated_ the snake in the blink of an eye. Her bandaged hands bunch around the sheets, gripping for her rapidly spiralling calm. 

Everything she had, she threw at it. Everything. He did it so _quickly_ , so _efficiently_. What was the point of bringing her out here? Yes, to get her to learn to say ‘help’, but what good is that going to do now? A basilisk, something so simple a regular mage could’ve taken it out, let alone a _Dragon Slayer_. Grandeeney would be ashamed to see her turn out like this.

Tanned hands peel back her fingers from their death grip on the blanket, smoothing out the wrinkles in the wraps. “You’re gonna fuck up my treatment, kid.”

“Sorry.”

Cobra sighs, annoyed and tired all at once. He pinches the bridge of his nose and asks, “Kid, you said it yourself. You haven’t fought offensively in a year, no fuckin’ shit you didn’t do your dragon justice.”

“If _you’d_ taken a year off you would’ve been able to do it,” Wendy says petulantly, praying he doesn’t hear the whine in her voice.

He does, of course. Now she just wants to cry more. Not until he’s gone though, she’s embarrassed herself enough.

“I’m not to leave until your lug of a brother comes back with that Council traitor of yours,” Cobra intones with a roll of his eye. “Mind you, I could kick his ass any day of the week, but I’m in no mood to turn into a snake-kebab because he’s being pissy.”

“I spent a lot of time training with Laxus,” Wendy continues on, stubbornly blinking back tears. There are only so many Dragon Slayers left she _hasn’t_ cried in front of and she’d like to keep it that way. “I don’t...get why I couldn’t beat it.”

“Okay, for the record, I already told you: you took a year off doing nothing but working on healing, of course your offensive magic is shit.”

Cobra’s words bite into her where the basilisk failed to, not so much choking off her air supply as compressing it so she can still breathe - barely. He’s right. He’s right and he’s the only one who’s refused to tiptoe around her about it. 

There’s no relief in the truth, though, just another wave of hopelessness to drag her under. Not even training with _Laxus_ is enough to bridge the gap, a year off be damned. Thinking back on the battle, she doesn’t get how she failed so badly. Every flip, every twist, was textbook to their training sessions. Was it the panic? The adrenaline? Wendy’s never really scared around Laxus. Intimidated, sure, but scared? No, never scared.

“He was going light on you, that’s why,” Cobra explains impatiently, “Don’t give me that look, it’s _not_ because he thinks you’re too weak to handle it - granted you _are_ -”

Wendy sniffs loudly, wiping the tears off her face with her bandaged hands. Cobra drags her hands back, groaning. “I’m _not_ changing your dressings again. Anyway, you _are_ weak compared to him, but - and if you repeat this to anyone, I will kill you personally - so am I. Dreyar’s a fucking demon even by our standards. Comparing yourself to him is setting yourself up for failure. He went easy on you ‘cause your self-esteem is in the fucking gutter, and it worked, didn’t it? You fought the basilisk.”

“I didn’t _win_.”

“Are you daft? I know most of us are short a couple neurons but you’re supposed to be the smart one. You weren’t meant to win. You were supposed to ask for _help_ since you seem so fucking opposed to doing it otherwise. What’s your biggest fear? I can hear it.” Cobra’s grip is tight, but not bruising as he forces her head up. Even through the tears blurring her vision, she can make out how cold his gaze is. “ _Say it, kid._ ”

She wants to, so badly it’s a physical ache. She wants this secret off her back so somebody else can shoulder it for once, but that’s the thing about these kinds of secrets; they become a part of you. At some point you become friends with it because you can’t live with it but you can’t live without it - better the enemy you know. Once it’s out, a piece as integral and familiar to your own being as your heartbeat will be _gone_ and there will be _nothing_ to fill that void.

“There will be,” Cobra says quietly, insistently. “You can’t slap a bandaid over it and let it fester. You have to let it heal from the inside out, but to do that you have to let it out. _Say it_.”

_It’s only you, your conscience, and him. Say it. Say it. You want to say it. Say it._

_But I can’t. What do I do once it’s out there? They’ll know. Everything I’ve done up until this point will be for nothing._

_Everything you’ve done up until this point has broken you. You’ll break a little more and it’ll be harder to pick up the pieces, but there will be pieces left to pick up._

_It’ll hurt._

_Any more than it hurts already?_

Wendy exhales shakily, trembling like the last leaf clinging to a tree branch, and whispers, “I’m scared I’ll be forgotten if I’m not strong like you all. I’m scared I’ll be stuck in the shadows forever. I’m scared if I don’t meet people’s expectations they’ll never ask me for help again and I’ll never get a chance to get better. I’m scared I was a mistake.”

When the weight falls off her back, there is no bone-deep relief or ease in her breathing. It feels like the only thing keeping her weighed down is _gone_ and there’s a vacuum threatening to drag her under. Heat and a sickness she can’t blame on the poison roils through her as it hits that she did it, and there’s no taking it back now.

She will never be the same.

“There we go,” Cobra murmurs, gentle voice at odds with the harsh lines of his face. “I hear you loud and clear, kid.”

With a loud sob, Wendy throws herself into his arms, burying her shame into his chest. 

Cobra freezes. “Ah, fuck, c’mon…”

“I hate feeling like this!”

“Fucking _hell_ , why didn’t you just choke that snake to death? You’re _way_ too small to have arms this strong, ow. Kid. Kid, c’mon, I have a reputation.”

“I just want...I want…”

He pats her back hesitantly, as if he’s not used to any kind of physical content let alone an armful of crying teenager. “Somebody to tell you it gets better. It doesn’t. You just learn to _deal_ with it better. You wanna get stronger? Nobody’s stopping you, go out and get stronger. You wanna leave your mark on the world? Do it. But keep doing _this_ and you’re gonna die before you live to see people give you that recognition. Pick your battles carefully and soon enough you won’t need to ‘cause you can handle them all.”

“Oh, and kid?”

“Hm?”

“Tell Lucy about any of this and the offer from before stands: I _will_ kill you.”

“Scared she’ll find out you have a heart?” she laughs wetly, drawing back a little. 

“Like I said, I have a reputation.”

“I leave you alone for two hours,” Laxus grumbles as the door swings open to let him and Mest in. “Two hours and she’s crying.”

Mest narrows his eyes at the scene, flexing his fingers. “I will beat the dragon out of you, what the fuck did you do?”

“Tough luck, fugly,” Cobra says, pushing out of her grip and stretching in an exaggerated manner. He swipes up his coat and shoves past them, halting in his stride only long enough to look back at her and say, “Remember, sky dragon, you owe me a poison. I _expect_ it soon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a blonde to go fuck the brains out of.”

“Oi, don’t be crude! Wait, I live across the hall! Is that what I’ve been hearing all week?!” Mest yelps, chasing after his cackles down the hall. 

“You good?” Laxus asks once they’re gone. 

Wendy smiles, the first genuine one in a long time, wobbly from disuse, and says, “I will be.”

* * *

“Laxus, can I ask you a question?”

There is healing in summer’s first rays, coaxing life into blades of grass and encouraging annuals to open their leaves once more. Wendy sits next to a patch of mint that Laxus planted the second the ground was soft enough to do so, trying to find the mint amongst the weeds shrouding them. Laxus Dreyar is a lot of things, but green thumb he is not, something that becomes hilariously obvious when he manages to kill a cactus.

But that’s okay. Nobody’s perfect at everything. Not her, not him, not anybody in the world, and that brings a smile to her face.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Wendy weighs the words carefully before speaking. “A lot of people....well, Totomaru and Mest, mostly, but Cobra, too...whenever they brought up my, um, problem, they always talked about you as if you were me at some point. I was just wondering what they meant by that.” 

A cloud passes by, casting shadows over the yard and blowing cool wind through her hair. There’s no sound coming from the inside the house; Wendy can barely hear him breathing.

“What happened to you, Laxus?”

It’s quiet a little while longer, and she immediately regrets asking him what happened. She overstepped. “Laxus, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Tea?” he offers, stepping out of the house with two mugs in hand. She accepts, waiting for him to settle down next to her before taking a sip and wincing as it burns her tongue.

They sit in silence until Laxus is done with his tea and moves on to ripping up blades of grass idly. Awkwardness she’s not felt in a while settles into the space where her secret once lay. Cobra was right about letting it heal from the inside out, but the least he could do was warn her how sharp and unfamiliar emotions would be as she allowed herself to experience them again. 

“How much do you know about me?” Laxus starts suddenly.

_You’re the strongest Slayer, you did something bad once but you redeemed yourself, everybody loves you, but you’re still trying to fix something._

“You’re my family,” Wendy says simply.

Lucy once said that there was a never-ending storm raging behind Laxus’s eyes, the kind that whirlpools in the deepest parts of the ocean are made from, but right now all Wendy sees are calm skies and warm weather. 

“I wasn’t always the nicest to my family. You’ve been told about Fantasia and the Thunder Palace, I assume.”

“Natsu told me once. Said it took both him and Gajeel to take you out and that’s why you got exiled. You were sad.”

Laxus huffs, letting the grass clippings in his palm fall on his lap, starting up again on the other side. “Sad’s one way of putting it. Angry and an idiot is more apt. I hurt a lot of people because of my ego.”

“But you were sad,” Wendy insists, not as though it’s justification, but because she knows all too well how arbitrary the line between sad and mad can be.

Oh.

_Oh._

“My great-grandfather was a lightning mage. When I was born and I showed aptitude for it, everybody thought I was the second coming of the greatest Founder. They expected a lot out of me given how powerful Yuriy was. Didn’t work out too well, though. I was a preemie, had _shit_ lungs and was always sick because of it. My old man - well, you’ve met him. He didn’t like how weak I was,” Laxus tells her, watching her for a change in expression. Wendy’s spent far too long in the hospital to let her shock show, a comforting smile taking its place even as her mind races to reconcile the flashes of the powerful Slayer before her with what she’s seen in the NICU.

That was _Laxus_?

“Anyway, I’ll spare you the gory details, but when I was about ten, Ivan laid me out on the kitchen table and shoved a Lacrima behind my eye.” He gestures to the lightning bolt scar on his face. “Lightning Dragon Slayer. Funny thing about pain is at some point you sort of blank out when it gets too much, so the next thing I know, it’s a week later and I’m waking up in the backyard. Turns out I was spilling out so much lightning it was the only place capable of grounding it all.”

Cobra once mentioned there was a dragon in her, and Wendy believes it. Violent rage - no, possession, there’s no mistaking it - rips through her frame, builds in her bones, seeps into her blood until every fibre of her being demands she hunt down Ivan and _tear him apart_. Strap him to a table and squeeze every molecule of oxygen out of his body until he chokes on his own sins and then heal him up to do it all over again.

_She will kill for her family._

Laxus’s hand carding through her hair pulls her out of her myopic murder plots, soothing that hate within her. He’s here and alive. He’s okay, right?

“I know that look, kid. Thanks.”

“I hate him.”

“Two’s a club, we meet every Tuesday. Anyway, I mean...shit, you know as well as I do what Dragon magic does. It was like I was never sick in the first place, and the _power_ ...suddenly, I wasn’t just a shadow of Yuriy Dreyar. Hell, I wasn’t even the upgraded version of Yuriy Dreyar. I was _Laxus_ Dreyar, and _that_ was good enough. Better than enough, actually. They all really thought I was a god.”

_They make her_ Wendy Marvell.

_For once, that by itself is enough._

“They had a lot of expectations of me from then on, and I met them head on. I broke myself until I became whatever the hell kind of demon they wanted, got myself a reputation as a finisher, and you should’ve seen the look on their faces. They were so proud of me and what I could do that I figured I’d keep going. I liked the attention and the praise ‘cause it was the first time I was getting it and it got to my head pretty quick.”

_“I imagine you'll be up on there soon enough if I have anything to say about it!"_

_“Imagine being able to diagnose fatal arrhythmias with your hearing alone! Or being able to smell certain diseases! You're a_ beacon _of potential, kid.”_

_"It's okay, they can't all be Wendy."_

“I got stronger. Much stronger. I thought it was a good thing, you know? Strength, respect, fear, acknowledgement...people talked about me _because_ of me. Not because I was a Dreyar or anything. It felt like the world’s best high after years and years of being raised by Ivan and surrounded by people like gramps and Gildartz, just to know that I was as good if not _better_ than them. You get why it confused me, then, that they started telling me I was doing too much. Getting too ambitious, too strong, too quick. Like, fuck, I was sixteen and spent my formative years _forcing_ myself to get to that point and they practically worshiped me for it. I didn’t get what changed all of a sudden, ‘cause they wanted it as bad as I did.”

_“You can always take a break and hang out with her.”_

_“Do you know how easy it’ll be to get someone to cover for you? Go.”_

_“We both have ulterior motives. You’ve achieved yours.”_

“ _Get your head back here or get out of my ER._ ”

“So, yeah, I was pissed. And I got more and more pissed as the new shits started arriving and gramps and Gildartz and all them were all over them the same way they were with me back then. Thought the whole world shone out of their ass, but it made no sense to me. They were so much weaker than I was. ‘Course, I thought the same thing was gonna happen, they were gonna get stronger and eventually they’d pull the same stunt, but they didn’t. They got strong, but not fast enough or well enough and I could kick their asses in my _sleep_ , but they still thought _I_ was a monster. Not them, though.

“I was so blinded by my anger and hatred and...well, Fantasia happened. I went into exile, spent a lot of time screwing my head back on without any of those expectations or people on my ass, and then when I was ready, I came back,” Laxus says, pausing to muss her hair _again_. Wendy would pout, but she’s enraptured by the unabashed way he lays his soul bare to her.

This. _This_ is strength. This surety of the self, owning the past in order to create a brighter future. Wendy _craves_ this viscerally. More than that, though, she wants to cry for the little boy whose only wish was to finally bring pride to his name because the adults told him that was what was important in life, the same way they did with her.

“Imagine my surprise when I see this little squirt of a Dragon Slayer making whole tornadoes, fighting God Slayers, and taking on a dragon slayer all at the ripe old age of thirteen, which was about the age when I learned how to one-shot a wyvern. I really thought for once we got the fucking formula right and you were safe, but then Wheeler happened. Shit, Wendy, I’m not kidding when I say it felt like I was looking at myself twenty years ago every time I looked at you. It was fucking textbook the way he was going at you - even _gramps_ saw it, but he didn’t do shit. Hated him a bit for it. He had a second chance and fucked it up all over again.” 

Laxus’s eyes harden. Oh, _that’s_ what Lucy meant by whirlpools; she drowns in that fury. “I sure as fuck wasn’t gonna let that happen again. I tried my best to try and...I don’t know, be there for you. I didn’t think ripping you straight out of the hospital was gonna do you any good, so I tried, in my own socially idiotic way, to try and guide you a bit, but that didn’t work out too well.”

_"It's a rush at first, finding your niche. Let yourself love it, but remember not to_ become _your niche.”_

_“Change is good, but too much too quickly and you might regret it later on. I know I did.”_

_“No, because they were that person once, too. And they get it.”_

“I think it’s a Dragon Slayer thing, personally, we’re all a bunch of stubborn idiots. Luckily it takes one to know one. I couldn’t keep you safe from being taken advantage of, but I could be there to help you piece yourself back together again. Getting you to learn to ask for help was half the battle, and the other half…” he sighs heavily, looking for answers in the clouds above them: a bunny, a dragon, a thread of hope holding them together.

“I didn’t want to see you turn out like me, Wendy. I was stubborn, refused to ask for help, to recognize I didn’t _need_ external validation - at least the kind they offered - and it took me way too long to realize nobody was going to think less of me because of a power gap or whatever. As long as I could love my family the way they loved me, offer them protection the way I could, it was _fine_. The world will keep turning, tomorrow will still be there, and more importantly, I’ll be _alive_ to see it.”

Laxus is the sickly ten-year-old and the tortured, resilient twenty-five year old all at once. She can’t separate the man who forced his family to hurt each other in a twisted elimination game from the man who saw her hurting and tried everything he could to make her whole again, because the Laxus sitting in front of her with kindness stitched into his muscles wouldn’t _be_ Laxus if he hadn’t executed Fantasia.

Just like the Wendy she hopes to be ten years from now won’t be that Wendy if she doesn’t do this now.

The Sky Dragon Slayer holds his hand in both of hers, tracing ancient scars on his knuckles, and looks her brother in the eye as she takes a deep breath.

“Laxus, I’d like to tell you why I did what I did now, if that’s okay.”

(Wendy heals the way she breaks: in a million pieces with Laxus Dreyar at her side.)

* * *

“Happy birthday!” 

Wendy rolls out of the way of Mest’s cake covered hand, which crashes into the pillow where her head was just a second ago.

“Really?”

“That was a thousand-thread count pillowcase,” Laxus informs him from where he leans against the door. “I expect that dry-cleaned by tomorrow. Also, why are you in our house?”

“I told you! I know where you live. And it’s my best friend’s fifteenth birthday! I had to come surprise her,” Mest cheers, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, before I forget, Mira told me to tell you that the Guild’s holding an all-day birthday bash for Wendy but I’m not supposed to tell Wendy ‘cause it’s a surprise. Whoops.”

“I’ll go practice my surprised face in the mirror then,” Wendy intones dryly, slipping out of his grasp to head for the bathroom. 

Fifteen feels _good_. It means a whole year ahead of her where she can take missions with her friends, argue with Laxus about moving into a bigger place, attend therapy with Totomaru, learn what plants are edible with Mest (and heal him when they're not), create antidotes for poisons mailed to her by Cobra, apprentice under Granny Porly, and a whole host of other things that can't be anticipated. 

No matter what, though, Wendy will be alive and present and ready to take them on until she turns sixteen and does it all over again.

"I'm ready!" Wendy chirps, skipping out of the bathroom and running headfirst into Laxus.

"Happy birthday, Wendy," he says, giving her a quick, powerful hug and stepping back to let her catch her breath. "Here, I figured I'd give you your gift before the Guild gets to you."

Laxus holds up a keychain with a little cartoon mochi dangling off it. Wendy squeals, accepting it from him and holding it up to the light.

"Oh, it's so cute! Thank you! Oh, gosh, where's my house key, I'll put it on right now…"

"No need, you'll have to take it off in about a month anyway."

Wendy tilts her head in confusion. "Huh?"

"I finally - well, technically _Freed_ , but whatever, I found a place. Two bedrooms, nowhere near the Guild or the hospital, backyard pretty much the forest so we can train all day...whole nine yards. We move next month," Laxus explains, grinning. "So, I guess the real gift is the house, but this is a good placeholder for now."

Wendy bursts into tears and latches onto him like a second skin. "You're the _best_!"

"Oh, hell, are we doing group hugs? Group hug!" Mest yells, stretching his arms out to wrap around the both of them. Laxus punches him with the arm not currently around her shoulders, scowling.

"Fuck off. And you're not getting the address to the new place."

"I'll find you anyway. Council privilege and all!"

They continue to bicker as they head for the Guild, Wendy walking two paces ahead of them to avoid getting caught up in the impending brawl. As much as it warms her heart to see two of the most important people in her life sort-of get along, it's nice to not get involved in their daily fist-fights. Honestly, it's like living with Natsu and Gray but _worse_ . How Lucy manages them _plus_ Cobra, Erza, and Juvia is beyond her.

"Hey, if it isn't Wendy!"

Geneva and Alvarado stroll down the street towards her, arm-in-arm and _not_ trying to kill each other for once. They look perfectly domestic and at ease with each other, and it's then that Wendy realizes it's been over half a _year_ since she last stepped foot in the hospital. She waits for the familiar wave of terror and anxiety to drag her under, for thousands of excuses for her absence to catch on her tongue along with the demand to know if she's still number one.

It never comes. In fact, she's exuberant. Today is her fifteenth birthday, and her brother and best friend are accompanying her to the Guild where she is the one and only Wendy Marvell, Sky Dragon Slayer and friend, nothing more, nothing less.

"Geneva, Alvarado!" she greets. Laxus and Mest come to a stop behind her, the latter confused in the way one is when waiting for a friend to finish talking to a stranger, while the former is so perfectly bored her heightened senses barely pick up on the line of tension running up his back.

"It's been a while since we last saw you, kid! Wheeler says you're on sabbatical for a bit," Alvarado tells her, to which she presses her lips together in a thin smile. Wonder whose excuse _that_ was.

Mest whistles innocently, having finally caught on.

"Any idea when you'll be back? We miss you and your insane magical healing. Seriously, the ER is a mess without you. Wheeler can't even accept Deanship because he's so busy managing that now."

"I don't know," Wendy replies honestly. Healing is as much a part of her as Dragon Slaying is, but right now the hospital is too fresh of a wound to press into. There's a lot she needs to work on in herself before she's ready for that again.

"Hey, we're headed over there right now if you want to join us for rounds," Geneva invites, flipping her red hair over her shoulder.

Wendy smiles, shaking her head. "No, thank you. It's my birthday today. I'm going to hang out with my family."

Slipping an arm into the crook of Mest and Laxus's elbows, Wendy tugs them forward, calling out her farewells. Laxus waits until they're out of earshot before inquiring, "You good?"

"Yup!"

"Don't feel weird for ditching them and the hospital?" Mest probes. Wendy doesn't deliberate for a second, catching the sparkle in Laxus's eye as she responds.

"Nah, I've got more important things to focus on. Race you to the Guild!"

Channeling a burst of wind into her palms that knocks them off balance, Wendy leaps forward several paces, pealing laughter ringing high and loud above their protests at her cheating.

They'll catch up to her soon enough. They always do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, here we are! The end! I guess now is where I ramble about motivations or whatever. I mentioned earlier that Wendy is an unreliable narrator: she starts the fic out at 13, and I'm sure we all remember our early teenage years being angsty and full of competition with others who seemed to be doing so much better than we were, hating every adult who went 'I remember feeling like that's because it seemed so pithy. I figured it would be a lot worse for a little dragon Slayer with crippling shyness surrounded by whatever the fuck they're injecting the FT mages with.
> 
> Then comes in Laxus, aka why didn't we get these parallels in canon, Mashima, this brotp practically wrote itself into existence. I tried really hard to sort of foreshadow the Laxus confession scene, which was probably one of my favourite scenes to write, so I hope you all enjoyed it!
> 
> I love Laxus and Wendy, I really do.
> 
> Anyway, two plugs before I sign off!
> 
> First, my friend PrimordialPaper is ALSO writing a Wendy centric fic with similar bamf Wendy themes, and I encourage you to check him out on AO3 for when it drops soon!
> 
> Second, this can be considered a sister prequel to Chaos Theory, so if you wanna head on over to read that...
> 
> I hope you all liked the fic! Please drop a review on your way out.
> 
> -Eien

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Suspend your disbelief about the ER a bit. It's chaos, but controlled chaos. Kind of. I can't explain it but if you've worked in emerg, you get it. I hope.
> 
> Laxus is giving off big brother vibes. Laxus is getting ~cryptic~ any guesses as to why?
> 
> ALSO CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW TO MAKE CHAPTER SPECIFIC NOTES INSTEAD OF NOTES THAT APPLY TO EVERY CHAPTER I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE AO3.
> 
> Please drop a review, I know FT is dead but there has to be a few people still reading...right?
> 
> -Eien


End file.
